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EPHESIANS 

THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 



SEVEN STUDIES 



BY WILLIAM B. RlLEY, D.D. 

Pastor First Baptist Church, Minneapolis, and 
Superintendent of the Northwestern Bible Training School. 



Author of "The Perennial Revival", "The Crisis of the 
Church", "The Evolution of the Kingdom", "The Men- 
ace of Modernism" and other volumes. 



Published by 
THE BOOK STALL 

113 FULTONST,, NEW YORK CITY. 






Copyright 
1919 

The Book Stall 
iij Fulton St., New York, N. Y. 



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5)CU535002 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Foreword 5. 

Chapter One — "The Three Authors of Sal- 
vation" 7. 

Chapter Two — "The Three Subjects of Sal- 
vation" 25. 

Chapter Three — "The Three-fold Effect on 

Paul" 47. 

Chapter Four — "The Three-fold Appeal to 

the Church" 67. 

Chapter Five — "The Three Features of the 

Believer's Walk" 91. 

Chapter Six — "The Three-fold Appeal to the 

Family" 113. 

Chapter Seven — "The Three-fold Expression 

of Spiritual Life" 137. 



FOREWORD 

<"fjg*N the study of the seven epistles to the seven 
S |g churches of Asia, memorialized in the sec- 
***** ond and third chapters of the Revelation, it 
is significant that the first message is addressed 
to the Church at Ephesus. Paul's epistle to the 
Ephesian church was the first in order of his 
prison epistles ; and may have been read to both 
the Ephesian and Laodicean christians (Col. 4:16). 
It is peculiarly a church epistle, but presents to 
the individual christian the certainty of conflict 
and the way of conquest. The writer believes that 
the three-fold feature of this book is not arbi- 
trarily introduced. He began its study with no 
thought whatever of reducing the book to any 
numerical basis. The divisions were, in every 
case, the result of careful investigation. He com- 
mits this volume to the reading public in the hope 
of making the epistle to the Ephesians as attrac- 
tive to students as it has seemed instructive and 
inspiring to recent auditors ! 



CHAPTER ONE 
THE THREE AUTHORS OF SALVATION! 



THE THREE AUTHORS OF SALVATION! 

Ephesians — Chapter i. 

^AUL is the author of the epistle to the Ephe- 
sians. Its date is approximately 64 A. D. 
and it is probably the first in order of his 
prison epistles. Tychicus was his postman, car- 
rying not alone this epistle, but with it probably 
the one to the Colossians and to Philemon. In 
view of the fact that in his epistle to the Colos- 
sians (4:16), he speaks of another epistle already 
written to the Laodiceans, and to be read by them. 
This may have been a somewhat circular letter, 
sent to Ephesus first, and later to the Laodiceans. 

It is peculiarly a church epistle. It deals with 
that body of which Christ is the Head ; and which 
is called "the Church of God." 

The Apostolic Greeting (vss. 1 & 2), is worthy a 
chapter, but we pass it over in the interest of 
what follows, viz. the three authors of salvation. 

This chapter indelibly impresses three great 
truths, — The believer is predestinated by the Fa- 
ther; the Believer is purchased by the Son; the 
Believer is empowered by the Spirit. 



10 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

THE BELIEVER IS PREDESTINATED 
BY THE FATHER. 

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spirit- 
ual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: ac- 
cording as He hath chosen us, in Him, before the 
foundation of the world, that we should be holy 
and without blame before Him in love : having 
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by 
Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good 
pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of 
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in 
the beloved." 

This language holds a number of words upon 
which the student of Scripture should pause. 
First upon the word — "Father." God is not a 
force, but a Father! A writer says, "When I 
say 'A force' I am somewhere, at large; and al- 
most think I am lost ; but when I say 'Father' I 
am at home, and all my heart grows still." You 
remember the language of the sweet singer: 

"I was in God's nursery to-night as the evening was getting 

dim, [Him; 

And I sat with God's children, and they were talking of 

And another child was with them, though Him I could not 

see, 
They say that God has an elder Son, I think it was He. 

'Father' He said first of all ; though I could not see for the 

gloom, 
Yet the instant He said it I felt someone else in the room ; 
And the room itself must have grown in a very little space, 
For the child called to Father in heaven and heaven is a 
far-away place. 



THE THEEE AUTHORS OF SALVATION 11 

But oh, what an echo was left by that one single sound. 
It crept into every corner and wandered round and round; 
The very air felt holy wherever the echo came; 
Cried the children, 'Oh, that it were ever so. 'Hallowed be 
that Name'!" 

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ." Sir Robert Anderson once said to 
me, "Never again speak of "Jesus," it suits the 
Unitarian too well, and the critical student as 
well ; employ the biblical phrase "the Lord Jesus 
Christ. Defend His claims ; decry His critics ; 
declare His deity !" 

"Who hath blessed us with all spiritual bless- 
ing in heavenly places in Christ." We are told 
that "places" is a poor translation and that "in 
the heavenlies" is right, reminding us that in the 
earth we are but "pilgrims and strangers;" and 
that our spiritual experiences are forever sug- 
gesting the Home to which we journey and the 
land to which we truly belong, to all of which we 
are heirs in Christ, "according as He hath chosen 
us in Him before the foundation of the world, 
that we should be holy and without blame be- 
fore Him in love." 

It is a remarkable phrase — "Chosen us in Him 
before the foundation of the world." God always 
expected to have a Church. God, from the be- 
ginning, knew what agency He would set against 
the world's sin; and from the beginning, God 
knew that "the gates of Hell should not prevail" 



12 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

against Him "Having predestinated us unto the 
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, 
according to the good pleasure of His will." Here 
let us pause and begin an outline ! 

Predestination is by the exercise of God's will. 
It is, therefore, all of grace. Peter, in his first 
epistle, second verse, speaks of the "elect accord- 
ing to the fore-knowledge of God, the Father." 
Jesus said to His own disciples, "Ye have not 
chosen Me, but I have chosen you." The sinner, 
of himself, would never even seek salvation, much 
less secure it ! "The Son of Man came to seek and 
to save that which was lost" and it is all of grace ; 
all of the good will of God from the beginning. 
The term "predestination" which has alarmed 
many, is only another expression of the eternal 
compassion, the eternal plan, the eternal pur- 
pose, the eternal project — redemption! 

The Believer's position, however is by the ex- 
ercise of man's will. He has "purchased us unto 
the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ to Him- 
self, according to the good pleasure of His will ;" 
but He will never foreclose on that which He has 
purchased without our personal consent. The 
day one is willing to be adopted, that day he be- 
comes God's child. And yet, lest we boast, that 
after all we have the merit of our wills, we ought 
to be reminded that He makes us "willing in the 
day of His power," Now, adoption is to be 



THE THEEE AUTHORS OF SALVATION 13 

bring to all the privileges of the truly born. 
Dr. Jowett, says truly that "sin is a voluntary 
breaking away from the Divine order, a con- 
scious and deliberate violation of the Divine will" 
and that "sin results in a certain distortion, a cer- 
tain twist in our relationship to the Highest, 
which evidences itself in the disturbing and 
maiming sense of guilt." A great experimental 
thinker has said that "sin is the God-resisting dis- 
position in virtue of which, man, in self-suffi- 
ciency and pride, opposes himself to God, and 
thereby withdraws himself from the active min- 
istry of God's life and love." 

Whatever relationship we may have main- 
tained by reason of original creation it has been 
distorted and twisted and needs to be righted and 
straightened and God has provided for that "by 
Jesus Christ." As Jowett says "Matthew Arnold 
once told us that "sin is an infirmity to be got rid 
of but forgot to tell us how !" Another counsels 
"Get rid of sin by healthy developments and fav- 
orable conditions." But, alas, who has found such 
conditions and accomplished such development? 
Men who have made endeavors, have been com- 
pelled to cry out at last, as Paul — the educated, 
as Paul — the beautifully environed, as Paul — the 
noble, as Paul — the eloquent cried, "Oh, wretched 
man that I am, who shall deliver me?" And no 
man who has been unable to say "I thank God 
through Jesus Christ my Lord" has ever found 



14 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

another way. All of this is "to the praise and 
glory of His grace, wherein He hath accepted us 
in the Beloved." 

Now, experience is the realization of this rela- 
tionship. We saw a child taken out of a Home, 
a few days since, to be adopted. The act itself 
had little significance to him ; but of the fruitful- 
ness of that adoption he will find out from ex- 
perience ! As he comes later under the hand of 
that beautiful woman : as he comes into the ful- 
ness of her love, and into that of the noble man 
who united with her in that adoption ; as he 
shares with them that home, and sees that the 
best even is reserved for him ; as he goes forth 
beautifully clothed and abundantly fed ; as he goes 
forth to the public school, and later finds himself 
in the University, his experience will deepen his 
relationship. It is so with us ! Our adoption is 
done the moment we consent to it ; but the joy 
of it all, to the praise and glory of His grace — 
comes to us in ever increasing measure until we 
shall break forth in song: 

"My Father is rich in houses and lands, 
He holdeth the wealth of the world in His hands! 
Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold, 
His coffers are full, — He has riches untold." 

And then add the refrain to express our relation- 
ship — "I am the child of a King!" 

But, as we have been predestinated by the Fa- 
ther so we have been 



THE THEEE AUTHOKS OF SALVATION 15 

PURCHASED BY THE SON. 

"In whom we have redemption through His 
blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the 
riches of His grace; wherein He hath abounded 
toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having 
made known unto us the mystery of His will, ac- 
cording to His good pleasure which He hath pur- 
posed in Himself : that in the dispensation of the 
fulness of times He might gather together in one 
all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, 
and which are on earth ; even in Him ; in whom 
we have obtained an inheritance, being predesti- 
nated according to the purpose of Him who work- 
eth all things after the counsel of His own will: 
that we should be to the praise of His glory, who 
first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, 
after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel 
of your salvation : in whom also after that ye be- 
lieved, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of 
promise" (vss. 7-13). 

This Scripture justifies three remarks. First; 

The Believer was bought by the Son of God. 
You can object as much as you like to the term 
redemption, defined as "buying back ;" you 
can say as often as you will that 'you never be- 
longed to the devil, consequently you could not 
be bought back,' but the testimony of all human 
experience is against your claim. Christ said, 
"Ye are of your father, the devil" and men have 



16 EPHESIANS— THE THREE -FOLD EPISTLE 

never failed to illustrate it. "His servants ye are 
whom ye obey." If we are to be manumitted, One 
must appear and purchase us that He might set 
us free. Dr. James M. Gray had occasion to 
write : 

"O listen to our wondrous story, 
Counted once among the lost, 
Yet, One came down from heaven's glory 
Saving us at awful cost. 

No angel could His place have taken 

Highest of the high tho' He, 
The loved One on the cross forsaken, 

Was one of the Godhead three." 

and greater occasion even for his refrain : 

"Who saved us from eternal loss? 
Who but God's Son upon the cross? 
What did He do, 
He died for you? 
Where is He now? 
In heaven interceding. 
Believe it thou, 
In heaven interceding!" 

"There is one God and one mediator between 
God and man, the Man Christ Jesus ; neither is 
there salvation by any other, for there is none 
other name given under heaven and among men 
whereby you must be saved." It is reported that 
Charles Lamb on one occasion was sitting with 
a body of friends and the question was asked 
"what would you do if Plato, Aristotle or Shake- 
speare should enter the room at this moment?" 
"I would rise," said Lamb, "and receive them 
with great respect." "And what would you do if 



THE THREE AUTHORS OF SALVATION 17 

Christ should enter?" "I should kneel at His 
feet," replied the same great writer. Lamb is sup- 
posed to have belonged to the liberal wing of the 
visible church, and to have denied the deity of 
Christ; yet, by this answer, he practically con- 
fessed that, after all, he recognized Him as more 
than a man — as the very God who appeared in our 
behalf. 

The price He paid for us was His own precious 
blood. "In whom we have redemption through 
His blood." It is the day when men hate the doc- 
trine of the blood. They have found a new name 
for it, and called it "the gospel of the shambles ;" 
but apart from it, there is no Gospel at all, since 
"without the shedding of blood there is no remis- 
sion." The Lamb "slain from the foundation of 
the world" is presented in Scripture as its one and 
only hope. Abel's blood by another generation 
was good, but we must have "a blood that speaks 
better things than that of Abel," or sinners are 
forever doomed. 

Dr. Clark tells in his journal of missionary 
travel, how once in India, he listened in a humble 
tent to the song of a lot of coolies who had been 
a band of cutthroats and murderers, and yet 
had been marvelously redeemed. One of them 
named Kothabye, had been the chief of a rob- 
ber band and had at last been captured and sold 
as a slave. But no master would keep him, he 
was so wicked. At last a missionary bought him 



18 EPHESIANS— THE THKEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

with the hope of saving him. One day he heard 
the missionary tell how the blood of Christ could 
cleanse a sinner. Coming to him he asked, 
"Could He cleanse a murderer?" "Yes" said the 
missionary. "But if he had killed five men?" 
"Yes" said the missionary, "the blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanseth from all sin." "But if he had 
killed ten men?" "Yes," said the missionary, "all 
manner of sin shall be forgiven men." "But if he 
had killed twenty men ?" "Yes" said the mission- 
ary "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be 
white as snow." "But if he had killed thirty 
men?" "Though they be red like crimson, they 
shall be as wool," answered the missionary. 
"Then" said he "I am that sinner, for I have killed 
thirty men." But the blood of Jesus Christ saved 
even that man, and he was now the leader of the 
coolie band and they were the greatest company 
of soul-winners known to that region. The 
writer, referring to it, said : "Perhaps you have 
no such record, and no deep sense of sin. Listen, 
the sin offering was for sins of ignorance espe- 
cially, the very condition of guilt was this, 
"Though he wist it not, yet he is guilty." God 
knows that without the shedding of blood there 
is no remission ; and Christ appeared to make the 
sacrifice in behalf of each and every one ! 

The praise, then, belongs to Him and to Him 
alone. One of the greatest sermons to which I 
ever gave audience was preached by Thomas 



THE THEEE AUTHOES OF SALVATION 19 

Spurgeon, and one of the most impressive features 
of it the oft-repeated phrase "It is all of grace !" 
The blotting out of the sins of the past is His gra- 
cious work. A writer declared that he walked 
across the valley of Dead Men in the South Is- 
land. Looking back over the way, he saw his 
tracks in the sand and marked how crooked his 
path, though he had intended to walk straight. 
It became a parable to him, he said, "This is my 
life. Every footprint, crooked !" "Then I fell 
asleep. When I awakened hours afterwards, I 
could see no marks on the sand ; every footprint 
was gone ; not one to be seen ; the tide had been 
in, and when it receded there was no sign of the 
crooked steps ; and I said to my soul, "that is a 
fresh reminder of what God has done for me." 
Yes; but it was through the Son, and the praise 
belongs to Him. That is why we sing: 

"All hail the power of Jesus' name, 
Let angels prostrate fall, 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown Him Lord of all. 

And that is why 

Sinners whose love can ne'er forgot 
The wormwood and the gall, 
Should spread their trophies at His feet, 
And crown Him Lord of all." 

But we call attention to the further suggestion 
of this Scripture, namely, that if the Church has 
been predestinated by the Father, and purchased 
by the Son, it is 



20 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

EMPOWERED BY THE SPIRIT. 

"That we should be to the praise of His glory, 
who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also 
trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the 
gospel of your salvation: in whom also after 
that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy 
Spirit of promise" (vs. 12-13). 

There is nothing in all human thought so won- 
derful as the redemption of man. We ought not 
to marvel, therefore, that the entire God-head — 
Father, Son and Spirit engaged together; nor 
should we be surprised to discover that each 
holds His specific office, and does His specific 
work. If the Father predestinated redemption 
and the Son purchased it, the Spirit makes it pos- 
sible. 

He seals the Lord's servants. A careful study 
of the words employed with reference to the 
Spirit will also show that wherever there is a dis- 
tinction, there is also a difference. "Baptize" is 
one word; "endue" is another, "seal" is a third. 
On one occasion Jesus Christ said to the multi- 
tudes that had sought Him for the loaves and fish- 
es : "Labor not for the meat which perishes, but 
for that meat which endureth unto everlasting 
life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: 
for Him hath God the Father sealed." A. J. 
Gordon says : "This sealing must evidently refer 



THE THEEE AUTHOES OF SALVATION 21 

back to His reception of the Spirit at the Jordon." 
It is maintained that the old Jewish priest had a 
custom of carefully examining the lamb selected 
for the offering, and if he found no defect in it, he 
put the temple seal upon it, thus certifying that 
it was fit for sacrifice and for food. Just previous 
to His baptism, John called attention to Christ, 
by saying "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh 
away the sins of the world." It ought not to 
amaze us, therefore, that when He appeared at 
Jordan, under the Father's omniscient scrutiny, 
He was a Lamb "without blemish and without 
spot," concerning whom the Father Himself 
could say: "This is My beloved Son in whom I 
am well pleased;" and then set upon Him "the 
seal of the Holy Spirit," descending in the form 
of a dove. 

Gordon contends that the disciple is like his 
Lord in this, "In whom, having also believed, ye 
were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." In 
conversion the believer receives the testimony of 
God and "sets his seal to it that God is true;" in 
consecration God sets His seal upon the believer, 
that he is true. Paul writes to the Corinthians, 
"Now He which establisheth us with you in 
Christ, and anointed us, is God; who also sealed 
us and gave us the earnest of the Spirit in our 
hearts" (II Cor. 1 :2i, 22) . 



22 EPHESIANS— THE THBEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

Christopher Wordsworth, realizing this truth 
wrote : — 

"Come, ever, blessed Spirit, come, 
And make Thy servant's heart Thy home; 
May each a living temple be 
Hallowed forever, Lord, to Thee; 
Enrich that Temple's holy shrine 
With sevenfold gifts of grace divine, — 
With wisdom, light and knowledge bless, 
Strength, counsel, fear and godliness. 

Oh, Trinity, in unity! 

One only God and persons three 

In whom, through whom, by whom we live, 

In Thee we praise and glory give ; 

Oh grant to us to use Thy grace, 

That we may see Thy glorious face, 

And ever with the heavenly host 

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost." 

He instructs the Lord's Servants. 

The Apostle prayed for the Ephesians that, — 

"The God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory 
may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in 
the knowledge of Him; 

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that 
ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the 
riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. 

And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us- 
ward who believe" (vss. 17-19). 

G. G. Findlay, a great English expositor re- 
marks "The spirit of wisdom and revelation will 
proceed from the Holy Ghost dwelling in those 
Gentile believers (vs. 13). 

When the mind of the Old Testament prophet 
is illumined it is the work of the Spirit. 

Daniel's wisdom in interpreting dreams was 
given to him by "God, — the revealer of secrets" — 



THE THREE AUTHORS OF SALVATION 23 

an adequate description of the Third Person oi 
the God-head. In the New Testament, Christ 
said of the Holy Ghost, "When He is come He 
shall guide you into all truth." The effect of His 
instruction is found in the circumstance that 
men of different creeds, and coming from all quar- 
ters of the earth, discover a marvellous harmony 
of thought, when the Holy Ghost illumines them. 
Bernard was a monk, steeped in the spirit of 
Catholicism. But when his heart was opened to 
the Holy Ghost, he wrote, — 

"Jesus, the very thought of Thee, 
With sweetness fills my breast." 

And every true member of the Protestant 
Church, listening to that song, believes that 
Bernard was visited by the Spirit of wisdom and 
revelation in the knowledge of Him, the "eyes of 
his understanding being enlightened, and that he 
knew what was the hope of His calling, and what 
the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the 
saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His 
power to usward who believe." 

In other words, the Spirit-led men of the earth, 
called by whatever name you may care to em- 
ploy, separated by any distance that may inter- 
vene, and partitioned by any Denominational 
labels that may be employed, are, in spite of all, 
an answer to the Master's prayer, — 

"That the Disciples may be one, even as He and the Fa- 
ther are one." 

But the chapter does not conclude until a fur- 
ther step is taken. 



24 EPHESIANS— THE THREE -FOLD EPISTLE 

He, the Holy Ghost, exalts God's Son. It was 

that Holy Ghost of promise. — 

"Which wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the 
dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly 
places, 

far above all principality and power and might, and 
dominion and every name that is named, not only in this 
world but also in that which is to come: 

and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him 
to be the head of all things to the Church, Which is His 
body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1 : 
20-23). 

The same Spirit that quickened Christ from the 
dead, inspires every believer in Christ to exalt 
Him, above all ; — all men — all angels — all archan- 
gels ; to name Him as the Head over all, "to the 
Church which is His body," to mention Him as 
that one which filleth all in all. 

In other words, He is literally fulfilling the 
Lord's promise, "He shall not speak of Himself, 
but He shall take of the things of Mine and show 
them unto you." And wherever a man is Spirit- 
illumined, Christ is not only His Lord, but He is 
the only Lord and Lord of all. You may find Him 
in the fold of Unitarianism ; his philosophy and 
theology may be as unsound and unscriptural as 
commonly characterizes that company, and yet if 
the Spirit of God ever breathes upon him, He will 
bring him to say of the Christ as Sir John Bow- 
ring the great singer, — 

"In the cross of Christ I glory 

Towering o'er the wrecks of time; 
All the light of sacred story 
Gathers round its head sublime." 



CHAPTER TWO 
THE THREE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 



THE THREE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 

Ephesians — Chapter 2 

5^-^HREE times it was my privilege to give 
(h/f) audience to America's best Bible student 
"^a-^ and teacher, Dr. A. J. Gordon. Many 
years ago I heard his eloquent appeal for the 
Congo mission. Grattan Guinness had come back 
from Africa and asked the Baptists of the North- 
ern States to take over that great territory, and 
there was grave doubt whether they should do it, 
and much debate against it. Gordon's address 
turned the tide and American Baptists have been 
made richer by their experiences upon that field. 
Two years later, in Philadelphia, I gave audience 
to him the second time, and shortly thereafter, in 
Chicago, I heard him as he stood before the minis- 
ter's Conference and spoke on "The Jew, The 
Gentile and the Church of God." 

That speech impressed me more than did either 
of the others. The subject was new to me. Until 
then I knew no difference between "the Jew," 
"the Gentile" and "the Church of God," and con- 
sequently was not equipped to teach the Word. 
To be sure, I had finished a theological seminary 
course, but in that I had heard but little of this 
distinction so plain and palpable that it becomes 



28 EPHESIANS— THE THREE -FOLD EPISTLE 

a wonder that even a way-faring man could walk 
through the teachings of sacred Scripture and 
not see it. As Dr. C. I. Scofield remarks "More 
than one half the contents of the Bible relates to 
one nation — Israel. They have a distinct place in 
the dealings and counsels of God ; and the Old 
Testament is devoted to their history, and the de- 
velopment of their divinely appointed religion. 
The New Testament to a considerable extent, re- 
ports the out-reach of the Gospel to the Gentile 
world, and elaborates upon the circumstance that 
out of converted Jew and regenerated Gentile 
there came "the Church of God." 

As, then, in the first chapter of this epistle we 
saw "the three Authors of salvation," so in this 
second chapter we are to study "the three sub- 
jects of salvation;" and no man has a key to the 
Scripture until he knows the difference between 
"the Jew," "the Gentile," and "the Church of 
God." 

The first chapter of this book concludes with 
attention rivited upon the fact that the Holy Spirit 
raised Christ from the dead, and set Him at God's 
right hand, "far beyond all principality and pow- 
er, and might, and dominion, and every name that 
is named, not only in this world, but also in that 
which is to come. And hath put all things under 
His feet, and given Him to be the head over all 
things to the church, which is His body, the full- 
ness of Him that filleth all in all." 



THE THREE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 29 

The opening of the second chapter is to remind 
us that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the grave, the Believer's resurrection from the 
death of sin was also accomplished, hence the 
language "You hath He quickened, who were 
dead in trespasses and sins." 

Here the apostle deliberately binds the Jew and 
the Gentile together in the act of sin, and the cer- 
tainty of condemnation. "We all had our con- 
versation," for Paul was a Jew ; and so it is that 
the Jew needed redemption by Jesus ; the Gentile 
had no hope save in Christ, and the Church of 
God cannot exist apart from Him who is its Head. 

I want us to consider these three in order. 

THE JEW 

A little search will show you who he is. Paul, 
writing to the Romans, speaks of Israelites — "to 
whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and 
the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the 
service of God, and the promises : whose are the 
fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, 
Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever" 
(9:4-5). Jesus said to the woman at the well, "Ye 
worship ye know not what; we know what we 
worship, for salvation is of the Jews." 

Of the Jew let me make three remarks, and 
advocate them from the Sacred Scriptures. 

1 — He was the Lord's own by election. The 
record of it is in the eleventh and twelfth chapters 



30 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

of the book of Genesis, and involves the call of 
Abraham and all the promises made to him ; for 
those promises swept far beyond the individual 
and anticipated the nation of Israel. Did you ever 
stop to analyze them, and think how altogether 
different they are from any of the promises made 
to the Church, or even to the Gentile converts? 
"They are the promises of earthly inheritance. If 
faithful and obedient they were to be great, rich, 
and powerful ; if unfaithful and disobedient, they 
were to be scattered "among all people, even from 
one end of the earth to the other." And God has 
made His word good, in a literal sense. So long 
as they were faithful to Him, no matter what ad- 
verse circumstances, no matter what enemies rose 
to trouble them, they prospered, multiplied, grew 
rich, dominated; but when they became unfaith- 
ful to the Lord, and finally rejected and put His 
Son to a cruel death, even from that time until 
now the Jew has been scattered and peeled; the 
very inheritance promised him, taken away, 
the very land he once owned has been stripped 
from him, and he is the one nation of the earth 
that has not a solitary inch of space to call his 
own. The Jew came into favor by grace ; he lost 
that favor through sin. He has illustrated the 
law of life. All favor is of grace; all judgment 
is against sin. When God made promise of lands 
to Abraham he was a sojourner among strangers ; 
when He made promise of children to him he was 



THE THEEE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 31 

childless, and his wife past maternity by reason 
of old age; when God declared to him that he 
should be a blessing to the whole world he 
counted himself a benediction to nobody ! But 
this election to the grace of God made all these 
things possible, and Abraham's descendants be- 
came the occupants and owners of the riches cf 
the world; he himself became the father of a 
family as numberless as the stars of heaven, and 
through him, every bit of light that has broken 
upon the world has come — Christ the Lord, in- 
cluded. 

His generation was God's household. "When 
the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, 
when He separated the children of men, He set 
the boundaries according to the number of the 
children of Israel." They were His own ! Jesus 
Christ reminded them of that fact when they be- 
gan to reject Him, by saying of Himself, "He 
came unto His own and His own received Him 
not." In the old day, remembering the covenants 
and promises, when men wanted to boast being 
children of God, it sufficed to. say, "We be Abra- 
ham's seed." When Paul writes his epistle to the 
Romans he raises with them the one question," 
"Hath God cast away His people?" And no man 
debated what the Apostle meant. If so, Paul 
would have put him right by adding, "God forbid ; 
for I am an Israelite. God hath not cast away 
His people, which He foreknew." Jesus Christ 



32 EPHESIANS— THE THKEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

declared that when He came, He came "not but 
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel;" they 
were His own. That is the thing to which the 
apostle refers in his epistle to the Ephesians when 
he speaks of that "middle wall of partition" that 
formerly existed between the Jew and the Gen- 
tile — a wall which the Jew himself had made more 
thick and high than ever was intended by God, by 
reminding himself that he was "Abraham's seed," 
"the chosen of the Lord," and by insisting that 
Gentiles were only dogs. 

The grace of God came to the Jew by covenant 
and promise. "The rites and commandments con- 
tained in ordinances" to which our text refers, is 
the very same of which the Apostle writes to the 
Romans, when he raises with them the question 
"What advantage then hath the Jew? or what 
profit is there of circumcision?" and answers it 
"Much every way ; chiefly, because that unto them 
were committed the oracles of God." And when 
one remembers the part the oracles of God have 
played in human history and all moral and mental 
development, it makes Paul's term "much" simply 
unspeakable. 

We may hate the Jew as much as we like ; we 
may compel him to go to war against his own de- 
sire and be slain upon the battle field ; but it for- 
ever remains a fact that the world owes a debt to 
him undischarged ; and yet, the Jew ought to be 
reminded of the fact that he was made subject to 



THE THEEE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 33 

the grace of God by election, and to him God made 
covenant and promise, and through him brought 
the oracles of wisdom unto the world. 

But the opening sentence of this chapter deals 
with 

THE GENTILE 

and we may be pardoned if we make three re- 
marks concerning him, basing them upon the text. 
They are remarks that will sound in no wise com- 
plimentary; and yet they are true to the facts of 
history. 

He was the child of this world. The phrase evi- 
dently does not refer so much to the fact of having 
belonged to the world, as to the circumstance that 
his whole tendency was in the world-direction. 
"The course of this world" is a phrase quite up to 
date, and is probably a parallel with "the spirit of 
the times." That is the very thing that many men 
are now lauding; and we are told that they are 
even looking for ministers who are "abreast of the 
times" or who are "keeping pace with the world," 
who are "in touch with the world" and so on. All 
of this indicates that people who speak after this 
manner have been poor students of the Scrip- 
ture. John, penning his first epistle, wrote : "The 
whole world lieth in wickedness." And one does 
not need to go far before he finds a confirmation 
of the Apostle's indictment. The spirit of the 
times is commonly in direct opposition to the 
Spirit of God. And the age in which Paul lived 



34 EPHESIANS— THE THBEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

was peculiarly so. One describes it as "godless in 
the last degree" and says: "The stream of the 
world's life then ran in turbid course toward 
moral ruin. * * The political world and the system 
of pagan society seemed to be in the throes of 
dissolution," and of it the poet wrote : 

"On that hard Pagan world disgust 

And secret loathing fell; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 

Made human life a hell." 

That is the age to which the Apostle refers and 
of which he spoke as "the course of this world." 
We imagine that ours is vastly better; that two 
thousand years have marked progress, and men 
and women have reached a higher level ; and yet 
a close examination would prove that "the course 
of this world" is not Christward but away from 
Him rather. How easy it is for men to spin phil- 
osophies that have neither scientific nor Scriptural 
basis. When Robertson Nicoll was editing "The 
Expositor's Bible" a few years since, one of his 
safest and best authors, said : "Science and Com- 
merce, those two strong-winged angels and giant 
ministers of God, are swiftly binding the conti- 
nents together in material ties. The peoples 
are beginning to realize their brotherhood, and 
are feeling their way in many directions towards 
international union." If our "two strong angels — 
Science and Commerce" ever had any flight, their 
wings are now broken ; or worse still, they have 
ceased to use them in trying to bind continents 



THE THEEE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 35 

together, and like black angels indeed, fresh from 
the infernal pit, are employing them to beat into 
insensibility their foes. Science has apparently 
reached its highest endeavor by creating the most 
deadly and hellish instruments of destruction 
known to the world, and Commerce has reached 
its acme by getting the world into a hopeless con- 
flict. One of the greatest subjects now being dis- 
cussed by Americans is how we can make the most 
out of the late conflict from a material standpoint, 
and we are daily advised by the materialists of the 
world to get rich, to profit by the present pande- 
monium and to pluck all possible profit from the 
bleeding and exhausted Old World Nations. It 
was science and commerce combined, — the so- 
called advance of immigration and civilization 
— that took America from the hands of its right- 
ful owners, the aborigines, finding it cheaper to 
banish them to a burying ground than to buy 
from them at a fair price. It was "the course of 
this world" that made England — once counted so 
noble as to banish slavery from her territory — 
willing, at a later time to curse China with opium ; 
and the "course of this world" that compelled the 
same American ships that carried missionaries to 
foreign lands to bear also alcohol that destroyed 
her peoples without number. It was "the course 
of this world" that led the king of Belgium to be- 
lieve that he ought to profit by his commerce in 
Africa even to the extent of cutting off hands and 



36 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

otherwise mangling the men who did not provide 
him with rubber and ivory in sufficient amounts. 
Have we forgotten that it was written in the Book 
even before the late war broke out, "When He 
maketh inquisition for blood, He will remember" ? 
When one falls to praising the world that "lieth 
in the Evil One" he will do well to read the char- 
acterization by the pen of inspiration ; and if he 
have no taste for Scripture, then let him turn at 
least to Philip Mauro who, illumined by the same 
Spirit, hath spoken things sufficient to shatter 
one's confidence in the things of "this world." 
They are not in line with God's word. The com- 
merce of the hour is not acknowledging Christ; 
the civilization of the time is giving Him scant 
attention, if any at all. "The course of this world" 
is not influenced by the cross. 

Sometime since a writer in the Examiner of 
New York said : "A few years ago a picture was 
placed on exhibition in the Royal Academy of 
London, which made a profound impression. It 
was entitled "Despised and Rejected of Men." 
The painter was Sigismund Goetze. And on it 
was inscribed "Erected to an Unknown God." 
Bound to the altar is the Christ, thorn-crowned, 
with bowed head and sorrowful face. Beside 
Him stands an angel, holding a cup from which 
He must drink. Is it still that bitter cup of Geth- 
semane? Filing past, on either side of the altar, 
is a procession, representative of the present-day 



THE THREE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 37 

world: the Roman Catholic priest and the Prot- 
estant minister, the scholar and the scientist, the 
politician and the laboring man, the soldier and 
the sport, the society man and woman, the mother 
and the child, the newsboy and the flower girl, 
the sister of charity and the hospital nurse. Of 
all these, only one, the nurse, sees the Christ, 
bound to the altar, and she is startled and alarmed. 
All the others are absorbed in their own thoughts 
and interests. Above this group, hovering in mid- 
air, is to be seen a circle of cherubim, gazing in 
open-eyed amazement on the self-absorbed crowd 
beneath. The message of the picture is, of course, 
that Christ is despised and rejected to-day, as the 
suffering Saviour of the world; He is the un- 
known God ; and it is a true picture of the "course 
of this world," or "the spirit of the times" of 
which the apostle Paul speaks. 

But he makes a second indictment of this Gen- 
tile company. 

They had also been the subjects of the Adver- 
sary. "Wherein in time past ye walked according 
to the course of this world, according to the prince 
of the power of the air, the spirit that now work- 
eth in the children of disobedience." "The prince 
of the power of the air" is a phrase all Scripture 
students understand. It can apply to but one per- 
son. He is the leader of the hosts of hell. His 
name is Satan ! He rules in the lives of unregen- 
erate men. We do not mean to say, at all, that 



38 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

every unregenerate man does nothing but at the 
devil's dictation ; but we do mean to say that he 
has not God in his thoughts ; does not inquire of 
God what he shall do, and consequently is not the 
- subject of the Father's will. Such men are de- 
scribed also by the Apostle in this same epistle 
(4:18-19) as having their understanding darkened, 
and as being alien from God through ignorance, 
because of blindness of heart; who being past 
feeling have given themselves over unto lasciv- 
iousness, to work all uncleanness with greedi- 
ness." So, we do mean to say that wherever 
uncleanness is wrought, with greediness, wher- 
ever the understanding is darkened, the life is 
alienated from God ; wherever the higher moral 
sensibilities are benumbed, and lasciviousness is 
common, Satan reigns, and all such as are subject 
to him, are influenced by his will and wiles^ for 
it is "the prince of the power of the air," that, 
now worketh in the children of disobedience, 
among whom we also had our conversation in 
times past." What Christian ever thinks of it 
without confessing it with shame? 

But even this is not the end, for the apostle con- 
cludes by declaring the Gentile to have been the 
victim of fleshly lust. "The lusts of the flesh ful- 
filling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and 
were by nature the children of wrath, even as 
others." How men can contend for natural good, 
we have been unable to understand. Jesus, on one 



THE THEEE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 39 

occasion, said : "Those things which proceed out 
of the mouth come forth out of the heart ; and out 
of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adul- 
teries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blas- 
phemies ; These are the things that defile a man." 
And when Paul was writing to the Galatians he 
gave us another picture of what the works of the 
flesh meant, consequently a definition of his own 
phrase in this text : "Now the works of the flesh 
are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornica- 
tion, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witch- 
craft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, 
seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunken- 
ness, revellings, and such like." 

Poor Voltaire lived his life without God and 
probably imagined that he could die his death 
without Him. But when he came to that event at 
last, he is reported to have said to his physician, 
Dr. Trochin, "I am abandoned by God and man, 
I will give you half of what I am worth if you 
will give me six months of life. And when told 
that his life could not be restored, he replied, 
"Then I shall go to hell !" Tom Paine, in his last 
hour, cried, "I would give worlds if I had never 
written "The Age of Reason." "Oh Lord help 
me, Christ help me. Stay with me ! It is hell to 
be left alone !" 

But now, out of all this hell, the Gentiles have 
been redeemed, and the figure that the apostle 
Paul employed in describing that redemption is 



40 EPHESIANS— THE THKEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

the figure of the One risen from the dead, and here 
employed as quickening those "dead in trespasses 
and sin." The great type of Resurrection is Je- 
sus' resuscitations ; and upon whom did He work 
them? Jairus' little daughter, type of the fact 
that the child also is dead in trespasses and sins. 
The Widow's son, doubtless her solitary hope, as 
well as her dependence and pride, a type of the 
fact that the moral man, in the midst of his splen- 
dor and strength, is still dead and needs to be 
quickened into life, and L,azarus, not only dead, 
but decomposition having set in, a type of the fact 
that tho men be advanced in years and sin ; yet 
even they may have life, for such hath He quick- 
ened ; brought back from the dominance of the 
devil, from the dominance of the flesh, to live such 
a life as to be worthy a place in 

THE CHURCH OF GOD. 

What a marvelous phrase the apostle here in- 
troduces concerning even the resurrection from 
the dead, involving both Jew and Gentile, saying 
"Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened 
us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved). 
And hath raised us up together, and made us sit 
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus : that 
in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding 
riches of His grace in His kindness toward us 
through Christ Jesus." 

The word "us" is employed with discretion. It 



THE THREE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 41 

involves both Jew and Gentile, and as they united 
in crucifying the Christ, so they must unite again 
in paying Him tribute and in creating the Church 
of God. 

The Church of God is the blood-bought from 
both. "For by grace are ye saved through faith." 
"Created in Christ Jesus unto good works." 
Brought from "having no hope and being without 
God in the world" to divine nearness "by the 
blood of Christ" (vs. 13). That is the significance 
of the Old Testament lamb. The shedding of his 
blood never sufficed to take away the sins of Is- 
rael, but it did point Israel to the Lamb of God, 
slain from the foundation of the world, in whom 
alone was their hope. The law had only a shadow 
of good things to come, and not the very sub- 
stance of the things. It could never, by the suffer- 
ings of those sacrificed, be final; but must be of- 
fered year by year. It is not possible for the blood 
of bulls and goats to cleanse, but "the blood of 
Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." 
The late war has lent new emphasis to the vicari- 
ous atonement. Again it has been illustrated that 
salvation can only be had by the shedding of in- 
nocent blood. 

The red soaked fields of France are a protest 
against that sacrilegious denomination of His 
self-offering as "the Gospel of the Shambles." It 
was not only "expedient for the nation, that one 
man should die ;" but it was expedient for all na- 



42 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

tions that that one man should be none other than 
Jesus — the Christ! He alone had the infinite 
merit that sufficed for the sins of both Jew and 
Gentile, and His blood both cleansed them and 
thereby united them in one blood-bought brother- 
hood — "the church." 

Christ is the corner stone of that church. It is 
built upon the foundations laid by Apostles who 
were also prophets ; but Christ was, and must 
forever remain, its "chief corner stone." A corner 
stone not only "joined two walls" as Thayer 
contends ; but it also holds the whole fabric in 
place and poise ! 

Christ did unite Jew and Gentile "in one body" 
"the church;" and more; without Him, there is 
not only disunion; but disintegration. Deny 
Christ and the church dies ! You may have build- 
ings and organizations left, and you may call them 
churches. But it is a misnomer ! Apart from 
Christ, Christianity perishes. The Rejectors of 
Christ are trying to keep Christianity. It is a 
walking corpse! They are also trying to retain 
"the church." It is a headless Ghost! 

Nearly fifty years ago, the great Dr. Dale said 
truly — "If only a theory of inspiration were break- 
ing down, if men were discussing nothing more 
serious than the precise and minute accuracy of 
the four Gospels, if we were threatened with noth- 
ing more formidable than the demonstration of 
the historical untrustworthiness of a few chap- 



THE THEEE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 43 

ters here and there, in the Old Testament, we 
might look on calmly and wait for the issue of the 
conflict, with indifference. But it becomes plainer 
every year that the real questions in debate are 
far from these. The storm has moved around the 
whole horizon ; but it is rapidly concentrating its 
strength and fury above one Sacred Head. This, 
then, is the real issue of the fight. Is Christendom 
to believe in Christ any longer, or no? It is a bat- 
tle in which every thing is to be lost or won. It 
is not a theory of ecclesiastical policy which is in 
danger, it is not a theological system, it is not a 
creed, it is not the Old Testament nor the New, but 
the claim of Christ Himself to be the Son of God 
and the Saviour of mankind." Dr. Dale's clear 
presention of the issue raised by Modernism, gives 
occasion to the logic of the great M. Guizot ad- 
dressed to his Synod long since, when this Mod- 
ernism, in another form, swept over France, He 
said, "As for me, I am a Christian ! I know 
what my symbol is ! There are men sitting by my 
side who do not accept the Christian Religion. 
They have a sincere belief in God. I have been 
careful not to deny that these men have a re- 
ligion. Let them form a deistical church ! I shall 
be glad of it. But assuredly the difference is 
great between them and Christians." 

If the Moderns of this moment, in America and 
other countries, believe as they teach, the time has 
come for them to find a new name for their re- 



44 EPHESIANS— THE THKEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

ligion. It is nothing short of traducing the Christ 
to deny His deity and yet continue to traffic in His 
dear name, and claim a place in a the church" pur- 
chased by "His precious blood." 

Finally "the Church" is the one earthly temple 
to Father, Son and Spirit. In the first chapter we 
studied the three authors of salvation. In this 
second chapter we have found the three subjects 
of salvation. The first and second the Jew and 
Gentile, when saved, make up the third — "the 
church." 

It is most natural since Father, Son and Spirit 
wrought in salvation, that all three should inhabit 
the temple of the saved. So we find them united 
in the life of the church, even as they were in 
bringing her to being. "In whom all the building, 
fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple 
in the Lord ; in whom ye also are builded together, 
for a habitation of God through the Spirit." This 
three fold relationship to salvation and to the 
saved, we have already elaborated, and may now 
properly conclude this study in the words of that 
great singer Charles Wesley, 

Come Thou Almighty King Come Thou Incarnate Word 

Help us Thy name to sing Gird on Thy mighty Sword 

Help us to praise Our prayer attend 

Father all glorious Come and Thy people bless 

O'er all Victorious And give Thy word success 

Come and reign over us Spirit of Holiness, 

Ancient of days. On us descend! 



THE THEEE SUBJECTS OF SALVATION 



45 



Come Holy Comforter 
Thy sacred witness bear 
In this glad hour 
Thou, who almighty art, 
Now rule in every heart, 



To the great one in three, 
The Highest praises be, 
Hence ever more, 
His Sovereign Majesty, 
May we in glory see, 



And ne'er from us depart And to eternity 



Spirit of Power. 



Love and adore! 



CHAPTER THREE 
THE THREE-FOLD EFFECT ON PAUL 



THE THREE-FOLD EFFECT ON PAUL 

Ephesians — Chapter 3. 

§~f^N beginning the study of Ephesians I felt 
» 1/3 sure it could be accomplished in three dis- 
*»«» courses but this epistle grows upon one as 
he continues his study until he realizes that every 
verse in it is not only worthy of remark, but 
tempts one to extended discussion; and even in 
expository work it seems impossible to do justice 
to more than a chapter at a time. 

There is a sense in which the third chapter of 
Ephesians links itself intimately with the second, 
namely in that Paul was the one apostle who saw 
most clearly and emphasized most wisely the 
three subjects of salvation — the Jew, the Gentile, 
and the Church of God ; and in this third chapter, 
he is but rehearsing his personal relationship to 
this great subject. But, in his explanation of that 
relationship the apostle says things of such su- 
preme moment that one would be inexcusable for 
passing them over lightly or even for treating 
them briefly. 

In the first chapter we saw the three Authors 
of salvation: in the second chapter we saw the 
three subjects of salvation: in this chapter we 
may see the three-fold effect on Paul, involving 



50 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

at once his appointments, his prayers, and his 
praises. 

THE APOSTLE'S APPOINTMENTS. 
"For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus 
Christ for you Gentiles, If ye have heard of the 
dispensation of the grace of God which is given 
me to you-ward, how that by revelation He made 
known unto me the mystery ; (as I wrote afore in 
few words, Whereby in other ages was not made 
known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed 
unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spir- 
it;) that the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and 
of the same body, and partakers of His promise 
in Christ by the gospel : Whereof I was made a 
minister according to the gift of the grace of God 
given unto me by the effectual working of His 
power. Unto me who am less than the least of 
all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach 
among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of 
Christ ; and to make all men see what is the fel- 
lowship of the mystery, which from the beginning 
of the world hath been hid in God, who created 
all things by Jesus Christ ; To the intent that now 
unto the principalities and powers in heavenly 
places might be known by the Church the manifold 
wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose 
which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord : in 
whom we have boldness and access with confi- 
dence by the faith of Him. Wherefore I desire 



THE THREE-FOLD EFFECT ON PAUL 51 

that ye faint not at my tribulations^for you, which 
is your glory" (vs. 1-13). 

This text gives occasion for certain important 
remarks, and more than a passing consideration 
of them, 

Paul was manacled on account of the Gentiles. 
"For this cause, I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus 
Christ for you Gentiles." The reference is to his 
suffering in the prison at Rome, in which place 
the epistle was penned. It was his proclamation 
that Christ stood ready to receive the Jew and 
Gentile alike, and that this was the Divine plan 
from the beginning, that had roused against the 
apostle the bitter enmity of Jews, whose constant 
indictments against him finally effected a farce 
of a trial and a final imprisonment. On occasion 
they had cried, "Away with such a fellow from 
the earth." And again, "It is not fit that he 
should live." More than forty of these Jews had 
bound themselves under a curse neither to eat 
nor to drink until they had killed Paul. And their 
continued and bitter opposition made its impres- 
sion upon the Roman officials who finally con- 
cluded that a man against whom so much was 
spoken must certainly be guilty of some crimes, 
and Paul was now suffering the penalty of that 
opinion. He was one of the first in that noble line 
of sufferers whose blood became the seed of the 
Church, and that for making no distinction be- 
tween Jew and Gentile. While William Tyndale, 



52 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

the noble Ridley, old Samuel Rutherford, John 
Bunyan, and others, have gone to prison for the 
same offense, namely the preaching of the grace of 
God toward all men, and endured nobly, the great 
apostle was to each of them, in turn, example and 
inspiration. 

Our modern missions to the heathen have ef- 
fected a repetition of the Pauline experiences on 
the part of the apostles of the eighteenth and nine- 
teenth centuries. Think of what Judson endured ; 
of what Boardman suffered ; and the hardships of 
Livingston; and the times of a hundred years 
since knew not all the noble martyrs ! When the 
Boxer movement, in China, was on, Horace Pitkin 
was among those whose death had been deter- 
mined upon by the Boxer crowd. His wife and 
child were in this country and as they led him 
out to the place where he was to be beheaded, he 
said to a friend, "If you survive, tell my son that 
when he is twenty five years of age, I want him 
to come out here and take my place as a mission- 
ary of the Lord Jesus." It is the spirit of Paul, 
living still, and offering itself in modern ministry. 
He was willing to be manacled that the Gospel 
might be preached to the Gentiles. 

God made him a minister of grace to them. "If 
so be that ye have heard of that dispensation of 
the grace of God which is given me, to you-ward." 
Upon one fact Paul forever continues to marvel, 
namely that God should have chosen him to the 



THE THREE-FOLD EFFECT ON PAUL 53 

high office of preaching His Gospel of grace to the 
Gentile world. People sometimes speak of the 
minister and say "He honors his office"! Cer- 
tainly if the remark could ever have been made of 
any man it might have been spoken of Paul. On 
the contrary, our Apostle feels that the office hon- 
ored him. Prof. Findlay, of Leeds, says: "The 
immense favor humbles him to the dust. He 
strains language, heaping comparative upon su- 
perlative, to describe his astonishment, as the 
import of his mission unfolds itself ;" "to me, who 
am less than the least of all the saints, was this 
grace given." We have no doubt that that favor 
seems all the more marvelous to Paul as he re- 
minds himself of his former attitude toward the 
Saviour and the whole subject of the Gospel. He 
had been a Pharisee of the Pharisees and a perse- 
cutor of persecutors ; and in his judgment, "the 
chief of sinners" in both. What a marvel then, 
that God should make him to be a minister of grace 
to the Gentiles ! He scarcely writes an epistle 
without reference to it. To the Galatians he said : 
"It pleased God, who separated me from my 
mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to 
reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him 
among the heathen" (1:15-16). He can never for- 
get his astonishment when "one Ananias, a devout 
man according to the law, having a good report of 
all the Jews" came to him and said unto him, 
"Brother Saul, receive thy sight * * the God of 



54 EPHESIANS— THE THKEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest 
know His will, and see that Just One, and 
shouldest hear the voice of His mouth. For thou 
shalt be His witness unto all men of what thou 
hast seen and heard" (Acts 22:14.-15). In that hour 
his narrowness gave place to a worldly breadth, 
and his Jewish bigotry went down before God's 
commission to the Gentiles. 

It is little wonder that the Gentile church re- 
veres the name of this man as it does. We are 
told that when Florence Nightingale, worn and 
sick, appeared among the soldiers of the Crimean 
war, they looked upon her and said, "How home- 
ly" ; but before she had finished her ministry to 
them, they declared her the most beautiful of 
women and believed her to be an angel from God. 
It is Paul's ministry to the Gentile world that has 
so exalted him in the Gentile judgment. And, as 
God goes on fulfilling His promises to His Son 
that He should "have the heathen for His inheri- 
tance and the uttermost parts of the world for His 
possession," the star of Paul will rise, for whilst 
he was not God's original minister of grace to the 
Gentiles, he was easily God's greatest minister of 
that all-inclusive truth. 

He was also the master of the mystery of the 
ages. And that he has voiced in the text, claiming 
that "by revelation" there had been made known 
unto him "the mystery, (as I wrote afore in a few 
words whereby, when ye read, ye may under- 



THE THREE-FOLD EFFECT ON PAUL 55 

stand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)." 
What is the mystery of the ages ? It is not that 
the Gentiles could be saved! That was a long 
known truth! That is what God meant when He 
sent Abraham to live among Gentiles, and by 
precept and practice show them the way. That 
is what God meant when He permitted Joseph 
to go down into Egypt. That is what He meant 
when, by the lips of every Old Testament prophet, 
He proclaimed the truth to the nations round 
about Judah ; that is what He meant when Jonah 
preached in the streets of Nineveh and was a 
prophet to the Gentiles. That is what Jesus 
meant when He carried His blessing, as well as 
the truth beyond Judea ! That is what He meant 
when He sat with sinners and ate with them and 
received them. That is what He meant when He 
said, "The Son of man is come not to call the 
righteous, but sinners to repentance." "To seek 
and to save," not the favorites of God, but "the 
lost !" The Gentile of the Old Testament, as the 
Jew, is pointed to the Messiah to come, and in 
Him "they that sat in darkness," were to see a 
"great light." "The mystery," now announced, is 
the fact that the saved Jew and the Gentile, should 
form one temple, one body, one church of the liv- 
ing God — moving on to the inheritance of the 
saints in light, that the middle wall of partition 
should be broken down, and in the Divine plan 
there should be no longer a distinction between 



56 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

Jew and Gentile. That is "the mystery" made 
known to Paul. 

The very definition of this mystery occurs in 
the sixth verse, namely "that the Gentiles should 
be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and par- 
takers of His promise in Christ by the gospel." 
This is the unsearchable riches of Christ that Paul 
was to preach to the alien — or heathen people. 
What an announcement for a Jew to make ! What 
excitement it must have wrought when one who 
had been most high among them in official station, 
and most arrogant in his exclusive opinions, came 
out to boldly declare that those opinions were 
born of bigotry and nothing better, and were 
hatched of self-esteem, and came not from that 
God who was no respecter of persons. I can never 
forget the effect upon Americans when thirty and 
more years ago Ward Beecher went about the 
country delivering his famous lecture on "Im- 
migration." It was a time when the descendents 
of the Puritan fathers were asserting their su- 
periority and expressing regret that the typical 
American was in danger of degradation by reason 
of the great influx of common folk. Legislation 
had been proposed to shut our doors, in order to 
save the purity of our blood. Beecher's fa- 
mous illustration was "Brethren, if I eat bear I do 
not become bear : bear becomes me. America 
ought to be great enough to receive and transform 
and also improve all peoples who put their feet 



THE THREE-FOLD EFFECT ON PAUL 57 

upon her shores. I stand for open doors I" Re- 
ligiously, that is the thing for which Paul stood. 
He wanted the Gentile world to believe that the 
God of the Jew was their God ; that the Father of 
the Jew, Abraham, by faith had become their Fa- 
ther; that the grace which the Jew had so long 
enjoyed was freely offered to the Gentiles; that, 
in Christ Jesus, "no good thing would He with- 
hold," and whether there would ever be a uni- 
versal salvation or not, there was universal pro- 
vision for it, and Christ was profitable to all men. 

It was a new era in religion : it was a spiritual 
Magna Charta ; it was the revelation of the Divine 
mind; and Paul was God's appointee as teacher 
of the Gentiles in this faith and verity (I Tim. 2:7). 
It seems strange to us now that such a declaration 
could ever have stirred the world and astounded 
students of the Scriptures, and yet when we re- 
call that it is only a little more than one hundred 
years ago that the first man, constrained by the 
Spirit, started on a mission to the heathen nations 
of the world ; and what he did and endured that 
they might know that God was as ready to save 
the East Indian as He was the German, the Eng- 
lishman or the American, we should easily under- 
stand the apostle's attitude and interpret the na- 
tional stir growing out of the same. 

Think now, if you please, upon the fact that the 
manacled man is made the minister of this grace, 
and the master of this mystery, and you will be 
ready to turn from the apostle's appointments to 



58 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

THE APOSTLE'S PRAYERS. 

We call attention to the fact that the Apostle 
started in to pray and had not far proceeded be- 
fore he broke out into teaching, so full was his 
heart of the great truths that must find deliver- 
ance. But when he has made his declaration, so 
far as his appointment as a minister of grace, he 
returns to his prayer, and "bowing the knee, unto 
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the 
whole family in heaven and earth is named," he 
makes certain petitions : 

1st — That the Gentile believers might have 
spiritual power. In his exact language to the 
Gentiles "That He would grant you, according to 
the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with 
might by His Spirit in the inner man." It is a 
prayer as pertinent as needful. The language of 
it is another illustration of verbal inspiration. 
Paul did not come near saying what he meant ; he 
said it with exactness. "That he would grant you, 
according to the riches of His glory, to be 
strengthened with might by His Spirit in the 
inner man." It was a prayer for the Gentiles. It 
was a prayer resting in the riches of God's glory. 
It was a prayer that looked to the Holy Spirit for 
the answer. It was a prayer that involved 
strength divine for the inner man. Oh, how many 
of us need to have such a prayer answered ! We 
go on thinking our needs for the outer man are 



THE THBEE-FOLD EFFECT ON PAUL 59 

great ; we go on asking for food and clothing and 
houses and lands and position and fame and pow- 
er. It is a fool's petition. These are not our 
needs ! The great need is for the inner man. If 
he is strengthened with might it makes little dif- 
ference about the outer man; but if he is weak, 
all external appearances, all outward graces, are 
a sham if not a shame. How many a man still 
wears the best of clothing, sits at the richest of 
festal boards, mingles in exclusive circles, exerts 
an influence that is felt far beyond the confines 
of his city or state, is honored at home and abroad, 
and yet is poor in spirit. Nobody else knows it. 
The very moment when other people are praising 
him he feels his poverty most; and sometimes 
that which is true of the individual characterizes 
a whole church ; and if they come to describe 
themselves, or to be depicted by another, they 
might be spoken of as "rich and increased with 
goods, and having need of nothing" and yet, as a 
matter of fact, be "poor and blind and naked," as 
was true of the Laodicean body. 

The second feature of his prayer was that 
Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith. Paul 
knew the Christ appropriating faculty — faith. He 
would have been ready to sing : 

"0 gift of gifts! O grace of faith! 

My God! how can it be 
That Thou, who hast discerning love, 

Shouldst give that Gift to me? 



60 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

The crowd of cares, the weightiest cross 

Seem trifles less than light: 
Earth looks so little and so low 

When faith shines full and bright. 

O happy, happy that I am! 
If thou canst be, O faith, 
The treasure that Thou art in life, 
What wilt Thou be in death?" 

It is a great Christian faculty and in proportion 
as a man exercises his Christian faith he increases 
his strength. The trouble with most of us is that 
our Christ is only a Saviour from sin. He is not 
to us an exceeding great and inspiring presence, 
an ever ready and needful power. The reason is 
not far to seek. We do not fully know Him. Our 
material interests have made such great inroads 
on the mind and heart ; external subjects have so 
far pushed Him aside, that the Christ we know is 
a little Christ instead of the great and glorious 
Son of God. This is not only the weakness of the 
individual but of the Church. Its life is languid 
in proportion to its low estimate of Christ, and 
its enterprises contemptible in proportion to its 
neglect of Him ; and its spiritual decline is in 
proportion to its declining interest in the Christ. 
Christ is not merely a subject for theological spec- 
ulation and discussion! Christ is the power of 
God in the personal life ; and if we do not make 
Him so we miss the mark of our high calling. 
Joseph Parker once said, "Your God is small or 
great in proportion to the use you make of Him." 
It was a sage remark. What sort of Christ have 



THE THKEE-FOLD EFFECT ON PAUL 61 

you to-day? Is he merely a Christ that could par- 
don your past sins? Or, is He a Christ that can 
indwell you by His own Spirit; inspire you for 
every undertaking, insure you success by His own 
presence, reveal to you the truth ; and as you 
make His acquaintance, be to you life, light, pow- 
er and all else that is essential to the greatest and 
most glorious spiritual existence? Is He the 
Christ that dwells in you daily, hourly, momen- 
tarily, making you more than conqueror? Such 
was the apostle's prayer for the Gentile Church, 
and such his desire for all believers. 

The third feature of his prayer was that they 
might be established and instructed. "That they 
might be able to comprehend with all saints, what 
is the breadth and length and depth and height, 
and to know the love of Christ which passeth un- 
derstanding, that they might be filled with all the 
fullness of God." 

This is knowledge worth while ; this is instruc- 
tion to be coveted, "to comprehend with all saints, 
what is the breadth and length, and depth, and 
height; and to know the love of Christ, which 
passeth knowledge." The reference to these four 
special magnitudes of the Divine affection are in- 
terpreted by Hoffman after this manner, "It 
stretches wide over all the nations of the East and 
the West. In its length it reaches through all 
time unto the end of things ; in depths it pene- 
trates to the region where the faithful sleep in 



62 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

death, and it rises to heaven's height, where Christ 
lives." Piconio, the great spiritual papist, said: 
"Wide as the furtherest limits of the inhabited 
world, long as the ages of eternity through which 
God's love to His people will endure, deep as the 
abyss of misery and ruin from which He has raised 
us, high as the throne of Christ in the heavens 
where He has placed us — Such is the breadth and 
length and depth and the height. To know that is 
to be established indeed. To know that is to have 
incomparable instruction ! 

But I am persuaded that one will never know 
the meaning of the breadth, length, depth and 
height apart from an earnest, Spirit-guided study 
of the Book. One must see the Christ revealed 
in Scripture in order to experience His fullest rev- 
elation in life. A man once said to Dr. South- 
worth : "The Lord can get on without your elo- 
quence and learning." "Yes" was the reply, "And 
He can do without your ignorance." To be taught 
of God first of all is the essential secret of teach- 
ing others ; to speak of the Christ at the right time 
is to understand something of the length, and 
breadth, and depth and height of His love. We 
have in the revised version the statement, "The 
Lord hath given me the tongue of the taught that 
I should know how to speak to him that is weary." 
The instructed man is the man who is able to in- 
struct in the "faith once for all delivered." There 
is then an occasion for the Apostle's prayer, "To 



THE THBEE-FOLD EFFECT ON PAUL 63 

know what is the breadth, and length, and depth, 
and height" of knowledge. 

It must have been easy for Paul to pass from 
such prayer to 

THE APOSTLE'S PRAISE. 

In that praise he pays tribute to the exceeding 
power of God. "Now unto Him that is able to do 
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or 
think." Paul could never dispute the power of 
God. He had known its meaning ! It had changed 
the whole course of the apostle's life. It turned 
him from enmity to love; from persecution to 
praise. It had been sufficient to turn the stream 
of the centuries out of its channel, as Jean Paul 
Richter had said ; and the Apostle had seen it ac- 
complished. The power that raised up Jesus from 
the dead was, in the judgment of Paul, the same 
that had quickened him — dead in trespasses and 
sin, — unto life, and was therefore, worthy of all 
praise. 

It is reported that Queen Mary of Scotland, 
feared the prayers of John Knox more than she 
did an army of ten thousand men. That is only 
another way of saying that Queen Mary, of Scot- 
land, realized the power of God and believed that 
John Knox had access to the same, and feared 
accordingly. Truly, the "fear of God is the begin- 
ning of wisdom," and the knowledge of His pow- 
er is the increase of the same. "He is able to do 



64 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or 
think, according to the power that worketh in 
us," and He is worthy of our praises. 

He makes this power manifest in the Church 
and in Christ. "Unto Him be glory, in the church, 
by Jesus Christ." We may say what we please 
against the local church, or against that larger 
body that we sometimes call "the Church of God ;" 
we may remind ourselves and our fellows that it 
is an imperfect institution ; but the fact will for- 
ever remain that it is the medium of Christ's 
manifestation. God has received His glory in the 
Church by Jesus Christ ; and it will forever re- 
main a fact that God must receive His glory in 
the same institution, by the same glorious repre- 
sentative. The great secret hidden from the ages, 
was finally made known through the Church. It 
was to it that God voiced His power ; through it 
that God declared His love; by it that God re- 
vealed His greatness ; 

The man who sings 

"I love thy Church, Oh, God, 
Her walls before Thee stand, 
Dear as the apple of Thine eye, 
And graven on Thy hand. 

For her my tears shall fall ; 
For her my prayers ascend: 
To her my cares and toils be given, 
Till toils and cares shall end. 

Beyond my highest joy 
I prize her heavenly ways, 
Her sweet communion, solemn vows, 
Her hymns of love and praise. 



THE THREE-FOLD EFFECT ON PAUL 65 

Sure as Thy truth shall last, 
To Zion shall be given 
The brightest glories earth can yield 
And brighter bliss of heaven. 

is not praising the institution so much as he is 
praising the God revealed by it. 

Finally, the Apostle imagines this power age- 
long, or everlasting. "For unto Him be glory in 
the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, 
world without end." It is the phrase for eternity 
We know full well that the time can never come 
when God's praises will end. The office of the 
Spirit seems to be limited to the dispensation of 
the Church ; and the Kingship of the Son, to the 
millennium period. But when He shall have fin- 
ished His reign, He will deliver up the Kingdom 
to God, even the Father, and of that Kingdom 
there shall be no end. 

a O where are kings and empires now 

Of old that went and came? 
But, Lord, Thy church is praying yet, 
A thousand years the same. 

We mark her goodly battlements, 

And her foundations strong; 
We hear within the solemn voice 

Of her unending song. 

For not like kingdoms of the world 

Thy holy church, O God! 
Though earthquake shocks are threatening her 

And tempests are abroad. 

Unshaken as eternal hills, 

Immovable she stands 
A mountain that shall fill the earth, 

A house not made by hands. 



CHAPTER FOUR 

THE THREE-FOLD APPEAL TO 
THE CHURCH 



THE THREE-FOLD APPEAL TO 
THE CHURCH 

Ephesians — Chapter 4. 

C^-30 refresh the memory, let us recall the 
(v/D teachings of the Ephesian chapters over 
'^s-^ which we have already passed. We saw 
in the first chapter "The Three Authors of Salva- 
tion" — the Father, the Son and the Spirit. In the 
second chapter we studied "The Three Subjects 
of Salvation" — the Jew, the Gentile and the 
Church of God ; while in the third, we saw "The 
Three-fold Effect on Paul"— The Apostle's Ap- 
pointment, the Apostle's Prayers, and the Apos- 
tle's Praises. 

This fourth chapter records the three-fold ap- 
peal to the Church. It is made by Paul the pris 
oner of the Lord ; It is voiced in the most ardent 
way ; he himself describing it as a "beseeching", 
and it is grounded in the circumstance that they 
belong to the Church — or the called-out com- 
pany. Furthermore it is suggested that their re- 
sponse to this three-fold appeal should be "with 
all lowliness, and meekness ; with long suffering, 
forbearing one another in love." 

And now for the appeal itself : It involves The 
Unities in Grace, the Diversities in Gifts, and the 
Essentials in Growth. 



70 EPHESIANS— THE THBEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

THE UNITIES IN GRACE. 

Dr. Scofield, in his reference Bible, declares 
that the unities to be kept, are, in number, seven. 
God so often makes use of that numeral to ex- 
press perfection that one is tempted to believe 
that there may be something in Ivan Panin's Bi- 
ble numerics. 

The Unities include, (1) "one body," (2) "one 
spirit," (3) "one calling," (4) "one Lord," (5) 
"one faith," (6) "one baptism," (7) "one God!" 
I will not dwell upon these in separate discus- 
sions, but -remind you, rather, of their three-fold 
classification under the names of the Spirit, the 
Son, and the Father — the three authors of salva- 
tion ! 

The unification is of the Spirit. "The unity of 
the Spirit," employed in the third verse, reminds 
one of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, in which 
he takes occasion to remind the members of that 
church that though there be "diversities of gifts," 
they "are all of the same spirit" (12:4). "The one 
body" is the result of "the one spirit," and "the 
one calling" is but the voice of the same. Lately 
we have come to believe that there are no schisms 
worthy the mention in the true body of Christ ; 
and increasingly we are coming to feel that all 
those who have accepted Jesus — the Spirit's rev- 
elation — as their God and Saviour, and the Scrip- 
tures — the Spirit's expression — as their rule in 
faith and practice, are absolutely one; and the 



THE THEEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE CHUECH 71 

prayer of Jesus that they shall "all be one, even 
as He and His Father were one," is answered. 

Some years since Dr. Bridgman, Episcopalian, 
in New York City, speaking on this subject, said: 
"Christian unity is not to be secured through doc- 
trine or ritualistic agreement. An easier, more 
rational way is through spiritual experience. 
Burkhard, Pascal, Cramner, Whitefield, Wesley, 
Newman, represented different schools of 
thought, but all felt the throbbing of one religious 
life in the soul, loved the same Lord, bowed be- 
fore the same cross, and worked under the im- 
pulse of the same Divine life." If one asks the 
reason, he will get it in the fact, and a fact it was, 
that they were dominated by the same Spirit, 
and under His dominion they discovered an es- 
sential unity. 

Who then, are my brethren? All the people 
that bear the name of Baptist? No! 

Who then are my opponents? All those that 
practice sprinkling vs immersion, and those that 
believe in autocracy or hierarchy vs democracy in 
Church government ? No ! 

My true brethren in the Church are those men 
whose creeds and conduct are alike controlled by 
"the one Spirit," even the Holy Ghost. That does 
not mean that a man is guiltless when he adopts 
an unbiblical church administration; and it does 
not mean that he is excusable when he accepts a 



72 EPHESIANS—THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

substitute for Scriptural baptism; but it does 
mean that these aberrations do not break the bond 
of brotherhood as between those over whom the 
one Spirit broods, since the unification of the 
Spirit is a thousand fold more real and more ef- 
fective and results in a far sweeter fraternity, 
than any agreement in the externals of govern- 
ment, forms or ordinances can ever accomplish. 
True brethren in the Lord are "in the bonds of the 
one Spirit." By that Spirit the Jews and the Gen- 
tiles were brought together and "the manifesta- 
tion of that Spirit is given to every man to profit 
withal." "And all these worketh that one and 
the self-same spirit, dividing to every man sev- 
erally, as He will. For by one Spirit are we all 
baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or 
Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have 
been all made to drink into one Spirit" (I Cor. 12: 

The indoctrination is about the Son. "There is 
one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (vs. 5). The 
first of these three interprets the other two. So 
long as men retain "one Lord," "one faith" is 
easy, and "one baptism" is certainly secured. 
The point of important debate, now, is not over 
the question of "faith," nor the ordinance of "Bap- 
tism," but it is over Jesus of Nazareth ! Is He the 
Lord? That determined, you get your "faith" 
from Him. Is He the Lord? That settled, the 
question of "baptism" is simple and certain ; it is 



THE THREE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE CHURCH 73 

to be after the manner of His example and in 
keeping with His plain precept. 

But these are days in which men deny the Lord- 
ship of Jesus. They do not so much "divide 
Christ" as they divide about Christ. Who is He? 
Whom do men say that this Son of Man is ? Some 
say He is a Prophet, the superior of Isaiah ! Some 
say He was a social reformer, more dependable 
than Carl Marx. Some say He is the super-man, 
and it is doubtful if the centuries will produce His 
match. But Paul will have none of these ! He 
says, He is "Lord." The "one Lord," the only 
Lord, the Christ who died for our sins, who was 
buried and rose again the third day, who hath 
ascended to the right hand of the Father to make 
intercession for us, and who, completing His 
Priesthood, will come into His Kingship; and 
will reign solitary and alone, "from sea to sea and 
from the rivers unto the ends of the earth," That 
is the Apostle's Christ ! No man from Nazareth, 
merely. He is that, but more ! Paul would have 
joined in saying "Ecce homo" — "Behold the 
man !" provided we permitted him to add — "Ecce 
Deus"— "Behold God !" 

Dr. Samuel H. Howe asks the question — 
"What sort of a Christ does your theology give 
you?" — "a great redeeming Christ, bearing away 
the sins of the world ; a Christ with all power in 
Heaven and in earth? Or does your theology 
give you a little Christ, shorn of infinite power, 



74 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

unable to work miracles, unable to atone for the 
sins of the world, and, of course, unable to con- 
quer, and guarantee His kingdom !" It is a perti- 
nent question just now. Paul's Christ was the 
Christ of the prophets, the Christ to be born in 
humility, I grant you; but to be exalted above 
all principalities and powers, angels and archan- 
gels ; a Christ to be hated by the world's govern- 
ments, but a Christ to whom the kingdoms of the 
world were all promised, the Christ into whose 
face, sin-stained men would spit their contempt; 
and yet the Christ upon whose face John should 
finally look and see it shining with a brilliance 
above the sun; a Christ who would go to the 
cross as a lamb before his shearers, dumb ; and 
yet a Christ who would speak eventually with 
such a voice as to wake the dead ; a Christ against 
whom "the rulers of the earth should set them- 
selves ;" and yet a Christ to whom every king of 
earth should be compelled eventually to hand 
over his scepter. That is the Lord of this text, 
and beside Him there is none other. 

Recently, in Hamilton, Ont., I called attention 
to Reginald Campbell's employment of the word 
"deity" applying it to a man, and reminded the 
auditors that that was a breach of faith with every 
dictionary upon the face of the earth, whereupon 
a man came up to me, with a snarl, and said, "you 
don't believe, then in the divinity of man?" I 
said, "I do not !" 



THE THREE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE CHURCH 75 

"Do you believe men are gods?" I asked. 
"Yes" he declared. "Pardon me for not falling at 
your feet" I answered. "You are nearly six feet 
tall, but I should call you a poor specimen of a 
God ; I should cover my face with shame at the 
thought of worshipping you !" 

There is "one Lord," and just on that account 
there can be but "one faith." Mohammedanism 
is not the faith: it is fancy! Buddism is not the 
faith: it is fiction; Christian Science is not the 
faith : it is insanity ! "To us there is but one God, 
the Father, of whom are all things, and we in 
Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are 
all things, and we by Him" (I Cor. 8:6). 

The organization is from the Father. "One 
God and Father of all, who is above all, and 
through all, and in you all" (vs. 6). Paul says to 
the Ephesian Church what he had said to the 
Corinthian Church, and what he is still saying to 
every local body of believers. "There is but one 
God the Father, of whom are all things." Di- 
versities of operations, but it is the same God 
which worketh all in all" (I Cor. 12:6). Perhaps 
the reason the Apostle declares that He is "over 
all" is in the fact that He sent the Son ; He gave 
the Spirit; He began the work of grace in the 
world, that out from its citizens He might call 
the Church ; and He will complete that which He 
hath commenced, for while there is a dispensa- 
tion of the Spirit and a dispensation of the Son, 



76 EPHESIANS— THE THKEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

both dispensations come to an end, the Father's 
will having been done of them ; and both the Son 
and Spirit will yield up to God the Father, the 
glorious kingdom that "God may be all and in 
all," even as from the beginning He has been 
"above all and through all and in you all." It is 
a good thing for one to remind himself occasion- 
ally that the very God is over all, and in all ; that 
the Creator and owner is the Keeper. A South- 
ern woman tells the story of a slave who had to 
wash some dormer windows, and in order to get 
at them sat on the outer end of a plank pushed 
through from the inside of the room. Being a bit 
fearful lest he fall, he said, "Missus, I will sit out 
thar and wash them winders if you will sit on the 
other end of the plank, while I'm doin it." To 
this his mistress replied, "Won't Mandy ,do? 
You would trust your wife, wouldn't you?" 
"Well, I don't know; she might forgit. But I 
belongs to you and you are not goin to forgit what 
you own. I had ruther you set thar yoself." 
Oh, Believer, that is the ground of your safety; 
your owner is your Keeper. "He that keepeth 
Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep !" 

THE DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS. 

"But unto every one of us is given grace ac- 
cording to the measure of the gift of Christ. 
Wherefore He saith, When He ascended up on 
high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto 



THE THEEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE CHUECH 77 

men. (Now He that ascended, what is it but that 
he also descended first into the lower parts of the 
earth? He that descended is the same also that 
ascended up far above all heavens, that He might 
fill all things.) And He gave some, apostles; and 
some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ; and some, 
pastors and teachers" (vss. 7-12). 

In the study of this Scripture there comes at 
once the suggestion : 

The gifts are attended by special grace. "Unto 
every one of us is given grace according to the 
measure of the gift of Christ." It is a good thing ! 
Gifts without grace would be dangerous ! The 
world's most gifted people, without the grace of 
God, are the world's most dangerous people; 
think of Bob Ingersoll : arid the christian with 
gifts, but without special 'grace is a menace to the 
Church. Think of Reginald Campbell ! Do you 
recall in the parable of the talents where Christ 
tells us concerning the man who is shortly to go 
into the far country, that he called his servants 
"and delivered unto them his goods, and unto one 
he gave five talents, and to another, two, to an- 
other one ; to every man according to his several 
abilities?" That was just! But God does better 
than that ; He makes a special grant of ability to 
those upon whom He bestows His gifts. Think of 
how Mr. Moody illustrated this. Evidently God 
made up His mind that Moody could be trusted 
with ten talents, and straightway He took the un- 



78 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

couth, uneducated lad and bestowed upon him 
such special grace as to make the handling of all 
that He committed to him the work of a master. 
One can never think upon the name of this loved 
evangelist and easily forget the fact that he did 
not begin life with such natural ability, nor such 
favorable environment as did his cotemporary 
Robert G. Ingersoll. As someone has said, They 
were born about the same time. They died with- 
in a few months of each other. They died of the 
same disease. They were were alike far-famed. 
But in character they were poles apart. Moody 
believed in God and accepted Jesus Christ as His 
Son, and the Bible as His revelation. Ingersoll 
was an agnostic, denying the deity of Christ, and 
disputing the authority of the Bible. Moody 
lived a life of prayer. Ingersoll lived a life of pro- 
fanity. Moody taught his followers to love the 
God of the Bible. Ingersoll lectured upon chris- 
tian subjects in the sole interest of silver and 
gold. Moody established schools and gave all the 
money he could spare to the spiritual instruction 
and nourishment of young men and women. In- 
gersoll deliberately destroyed the faith of the 
youth and inveigled them into paying him for the 
devastation. Moody called men to Christ and to 
christian living. Ingersoll derided the Christ and 
sought to crush Christianity. When the end 
came the Dobbs Ferry home was dumb, desolate 
and dark; but the Northfield home was the gate 



THE THEEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE CHUECH 79 

of Heaven and Moody's last vision on earth in- 
cluded also the open gates of the Celestial City. 
Ingersoll died unwept save by the little circle of 
relatives and skeptics. The death of Moody bap- 
tized the christian world in tears ! 

What was the difference? Not in natural tal- 
ents surely! Not so much in human environ- 
ment! They were alike born of Christian par- 
ents, but in the circumstance that Moody had a 
gift from Christ and grace bestowed according to 
the measure thereof ; and Ingersoll refused Christ 
and failed of the gift of grace. 

Christ's gifts are men; not enablements! The 
Christ who ascended on high, "gave some, Apos- 
tles, and some, prophets, and some, evangelists, 
and some, pastors and teachers." Paul has noted 
the progress made in the parables of Jesus Christ 
and, by the pen of inspiration, expresses it. Do 
you remember in the Kingdom parables of Mat- 
thew 13, Christ begins in the nineteenth verse 
explaining the parable of the Sower by making 
"the seed" the Word of God, sown in the heart? 
But in the parable of the tares of the field, He re- 
minds them that "the good seed" are "the chil- 
dren of the Kingdom," — or the word incarnate in 
life. Exactly that progress is made in the apos- 
tolic teaching here. The gifts of the Spirit to the 
individual are enablements, such as "the word of 
wisdom," "the word of knowledge," "faith," 
"healing," "working of miracles," "prophecy," 



80 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

"discernment of spirits," "divers kinds of 
tongues," etc. ; but the gifts of the Son to His 
Church are men — "the children of the kingdom" — 
"apostles," "prophets," "evangelists," "pastors," 
"teachers," etc. There is a reason for this, as there 
is for everything God does. You cannot give a 
tongue to the Church ; you have got to give it to 
an individual, in the Church. But you can give a 
prophet to the church, and Ephesians is a church 
epistle! To the Church you can give an "apos- 
tle," an "evangelist," "a teacher," and how rich 
the church is, in God's gifts of men ! How we 
ought to thank Him for the gift of Paul, for the 
gift of Peter, for the gift of Polycarp, for the gift 
of John Bunyan, John Calvin, John Wesley, for 
the gift of Martin Luther, for the gift of Fenelon, 
for the gift of Spurgeon, and Moody, and Parker, 
and LyOrimer. Upon the individual He can be- 
stow one gift or more, but upon the Church God 
bestows all these gifts, — "apostles," "prophets," 
"evangelists," "pastors," "teachers" and they are 
all essential to its growth. 

They are the grant of the Son, not of the Spirit. 
Paul seems to make this clear distinction in I Cor. 
12 the gifts are the Spirit's gifts — and they are 
enduements, "for one is given, by the Spirit, the 
word of wisdom ; to another, the word of knowl- 
edge, by the same Spirit," etc. Here it is not the 
descending Spirit's grant, but, rather, the grant 
of the ascended Son. "When He went up on 



THE THREE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE CHURCH 81 

High, leading captivity captive, He gave gifts un- 
to men." Every single apostle of the New Testa- 
ment was called by the Son ; even Paul came to 
that vision by the special appearance of the Son, 
and by the voice of the ascended Lord. Gordon 
is right when he declares that it is not the prov- 
ince of schools nor yet of ordaining councils to 
determine the ministry of the Church. The Mas- 
ter has retained that as His special prerogative, 
and no man has a right in any one of these, apart 
from the appointment of the Son. 

Paul further expresses this fact in the introduc- 
tions to his epistles. Writing to the Romans he 
speaks of himself as "the servant of Jesus Christ/' 
Writing to the Corinthians, he declares himself 
to be an "apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will 
of God." Writing to the Galatians, he declares 
himself "an apostle, not of men, neither by man, 
but by Jesus Christ and the Father, who raised 
Him from the dead." In other words, he never 
once mentions his commission as from the Spirit ; 
but, rather, as from the Son, — the second person 
of the Godhead ; whereas his enduements are all 
from the Spirit. It is as if there had been an 
agreement between these two Persons that the 
first should appoint and the second should endue, 
and Jesus, in keeping with that contract, besought 
His disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they 
"should be endued with power from on High;" 
and reminded them that that was "the promise of 
the Spirit." 



82 EPHESIANS— THE THREE -FOLD EPISTLE 

THE ESSENTIALS IN GROWTH. 

Scofield, in his Bible, calls attention to the pur- 
poses of the ministry of gifts. According to Paul, 
the chief purpose was "growth." 

Evidently he thought that growth could be 
quickened by its goal. The goal he mentions is 
"the perfecting of the saints !" It is to be accom- 
plished by "the work of the ministry," and its ob- 
ject is "the edifying of the body of Christ," "Till 
we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ" (vs. 12-13)- Beyond all doubt men are 
affected by the circumstance of birth and are in- 
fluenced by breeding and environment; but even 
more potent still, in determining mature man- 
hood, is the ideal that one puts before himself — 
the goal to be reached. You recall in Charles 
Kingsley's "Hypatia" how old Miriam, the sor- 
ceress, after a conversation with Philamon, drew 
from her bosom a broken talisman exactly sim- 
ilar to the one which she coveted so fiercely, and 
looked at it long and kissed it, wept over it, spoke 
to it, fondled it in her arms as a mother would a 
child ; and her grim, withered features grew soft- 
er, purer, grander, and rose, ennobled for a mo- 
ment, to their long-lost "might-have-been," to 
what Kingsley calls "that personal ideal which 
every soul brings with it into the world, which 



THE THEEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE CHUECH 83 

shines dim and potential in the face of every 
sleeping babe before it has been scarred and dis- 
torted in the long tragedy of life. And Kingsley 
says of her, "Scarred she was, Sorceress, pander- 
er and slave dealer, steeped to the lips in false- 
hood, ferocity and avarice ; yet that paltry stone 
brought home to her some thought, true, spirit- 
ual, before which all her treasures and all her 
ambition were as worthless in her own eyes as 
they were in the eyes of the angels of God." But 
what is such an ideal worth when the one who 
once entertained it is held in the grip of Satan, 
scarred and wrecked by sin, and incapable of high 
thought or holy endeavor? 

Paul does not speak to such, but to men — set 
free in Christ; and who, because they are free, 
can work onward and upward toward that perfect 
man, "Unto the measure of the stature of the 
fullness of Christ;" and such possibilities, with 
such a goal unite to create an inspiration that is 
adequate, viz. "Christ is formed in us the hope of 
glory." A clipping which came to my hand a 
while ago says : "When a girl adopts a plan of 
self-improvement she begins usually with her 
complexion or her figure, but let us in confidence 
betray a beauty secret that deals not in cosmetics 
or lotions, that does not tend to injure the skin or 
fatigue the body, yet which adds more genuine 
loveliness to a woman's heart and mind than all 
the contents of the little jars and cut-glass bot- 



S4 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

ties on many a lady's toilet table could ever hope 
to effect." And then the writer prescribes : "Take 
a culture course, become a reader. Seek out the 
best, poetry, fiction, history, and you may depend 
upon it that such a course will do more towards 
making you a charming and delightful companion 
for those who appreciate the beauty of intellect 
than the fleeting power of a beauty that is not 
backed by brains." All of that is true, and all of 
that involves the betterment of self ; but let us not 
forget the old German proverb, namely that "The 
better is the enemy of the best." And, if one 
wants to obtain the best, rather than the better, 
then let him cultivate reading, not books, but "the 
Book;" and not noble friends, but the noblest of 
all friends, and seek not the increase of mental 
brilliance but the stature of spiritual fulness. 

Years ago when the old Emperor was on the 
throne of Germany, he felt called upon to lecture 
the artists of Berlin Opera House and the Berlin 
Royal Theatre, on the dangers arising to their 
profession from materialism. He informed his 
privileged auditors that he had been educated in 
idealism, and that the stage should seek to fash- 
ion mind and character and assist in educating 
moral conceptions. In concluding he said : "Let 
every one of you, in his own way, and firmly 
trusting in God, strive to serve the spirit of ideal- 
ism and to continue the struggle against material- 
ism and against those un-German ways into which 



THE THREE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE CHURCH 85 

so many German theatres have already unfor- 
tunately deviated." It is a pity the old Emperor 
is not now alive to revoice the sentiment ! It 
was the growth of the "materialistic" and "ra- 
tional ( ?) idea" that has flung Europe and portions 
of Asia and all the world into the late sea of 
blood. Oh, could we only have kept the ideal be- 
fore men — faith in God — and the hope of Sonship 
before the eyes of the professed followers of Jesus 
Christ and the knowledge of His Son, which 
should make for "a perfect man," measured by 
the "stature of Jesus Christ," how different would 
Europe look to-day and how different the world 
would be ! 

The failure of the Church in this awful hour 
is as sad as the collapse of civilization. Where are 
the men, who in the knowledge of the Son of God, 
are measuring up to the demands of the moment, 
and who are the men that stand forth in the full- 
ness of Christ? A few? Yes! But how feeble a 
company! Why? Oh, the call of God's Church 
has not been sufficient. Let us lift the standard ; 
without accepting the unscriptural doctrine of 
eradication, let us remind ourselves God will be 
satisfied with nothing short of "perfected saints." 
His word standeth fast — "Be ye perfect, even as 
I also am perfect." That is our call ! God pity us 
that we have so often forgotten it, and thereby 
lost the inspiration of the ideal. 



86 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

This growth expresses itself in grace. Those 
who have it will "be henceforth no more children, 
tossed to and fro, and carried about with every 
wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, and cun- 
ning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to de- 
ceive. But speaking the truth in love, may grow 
up unto Him in all things, which is the head, even 
Christ. From whom the whole body, fitly joined 
together and compacted by that which every joint 
supplieth, according to the effectual working in 
the measure of every part, maketh increase of 
the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (vss. 
14-16). What beauty is therein suggested — the 
beauty of stability, the beauty of true speaking, 
the beauty of comely form as affected in Christ, 
to the end that the children — the body — the true 
church of God — may edify itself in love. 

Years ago when I was in Chicago, a young 
woman died in the chair of an operator in a beauty 
parlor. A newspaper reporter, finding it out, ran 
into the parlor to make investigation; and, as he 
came out, he saw an old woman, well-dressed. 
She stopped him and asked him if the girl was 
dead. Being answered in the affirmative, she said 
"Do you think there would be great danger in my 
going in to take this treatment? I want to get rid 
of these wrinkles.'' He told her the facts about 
the girl and that the treatment killed her. But 
the old woman answered, "I know ; but I think I 
am strong enough to bear whatever pain may be 



THE THREE -FOLD APPEAL TO THE CHUECH 87 

inflicted upon me, and I must get rid of these 
wrinkles." So women crave that beauty of com- 
plexion, of form, about which their brothers and 
lovers have talked until their heads have been 
turned, and no sacrifice is too great to make if 
only it can be secured. Would God, spiritual 
perfection were equally prized. Then men would 
not be veered by every wind of doctrine that 
blows ; then men would seek to know the truth 
that they might speak the same ; and to grow in 
grace, that in Christ's sight they might be come- 
ly. Yea, as a part of His body to take their place 
in its upbuilding; as a part of His body they 
might be so fully joined together with their breth- 
ren and sisters as to provide for Him a glorious 
bride, whose beauty of holiness would become the 
Lamb's wife. 

Finally, the consequence of this growth is 
goodness. Paul completes this fourth chapter by 
an appeal to the members of the body of Christ 
that they put away every thing that could scar, 
and accept from the Spirit all that would add 
charm to the Church of God. They are to put 
away the Gentile lusts, the old life of ignorance 
and "lascivious living," "all uncleanness," "with 
greediness ;" "the former conversation of the old 
man," which was corrupt, according to the de- 
ceitful lusts, and "to be renewed in the spirit of 
their minds, which after God is created in right- 
eousness and holiness," "speaking every man 



SS EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

truth with his neighbor," "letting not the sun go 
down upon their wrath," "giving no place to the 
devil," "engaging no longer in theft," "voicing 
no further corrupt communication," but seeking 
the good — exercising "all kindness," being "ten- 
der hearted," feeling only "the forgiving spirit" 
(vss. 17-32). It is a picture of approaching per- 
fection. And as a man marks growth in spiritual 
things his life completes the picture. 

As a review of this chapter, with the one pre- 
ceding it, and the one to follow it, I am led to con- 
clude in the language of Dwight Hillis: in his 
tribute to Scripture Study — 

"Be our theories of inspiration what they may, 
this book deals with the deepest things in man's 
heart and life. Ruskin and Carlyle tell us that 
they owe more to it, in the way of refinement and 
culture, than to all the other books, plus all the 
influence of colleges and universities. Therein 
the greatest geniuses of time tell us of the things 
they caught fresh from the skies, 'the things that 
stormed upon them, and surged through their 
souls in mighty tides, entrancing them with 
matchless music;' things so precious for man's 
heart and conscience as to be endured and died 
for. It is the one book that can fully lead forth 
the richest and deepest and sweetest things in 
man's nature. Read all other books, philosophy, 
poetry, history, fiction; but if you would refine 
the judgment, fertilize the reason, wing the imagi- 



THE THREE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE CHURCH 89 

nation, attain unto the finest womanhood or the 
sturdiest manhood, read this book, reverently and 
prayerfully, until its truths have dissolved like 
iron into the blood. Read, indeed, the hundred 
great books. If you have no time, make time and 
read. Read as toil the slaves in Golconda, casting 
away the rubbish and keeping the gems. Read to 
transmute facts into life, but read daily the Book 
of conduct and character — the Bible. For the 
book Daniel Webster placed under his pillow 
when dying is the book all should carry in the 
hand while living." 

The ideal presented in this Epistle will be real- 
ized only by the men and church that know both 
God, manifest in Christ, and study His will as 
revealed by the Spirit ! 



CHAPTER FIVE 

THE THREE FEATURES OF THE 
BELIEVER'S WALK 



THE THREE FEATURES OF THE 
BELIEVER'S WALK 

Ephesians 5 :l-20. 

JsTfefN this study we part company from the man 
& IS of chapters. It is commonly understood 
*« that the chapters in our Bible are purely 
man-made, and the divisions suggested thereby 
are often more mechanical than logical. When, 
in the fifth chapter, one passes the twentieth verse 
he comes upon a new subject, and passes from the 
Church to the domestic realm. 

Following again the line of our theme we find 
that these twenty verses are characterized by a 
three-fold use of the word "walk" ; and conse- 
quently we have been led to entitle this study 
"The Three Features of the Believer's Walk," 
and the phrases that introduce these features are 
these: "Walk in love" (vs. 2); "Walk as chil- 
dren of light" (vs. 8) ; and "Walk circumspectly" 
(vs. 15). 

In a wonderful way these three phrases compass 
the believer's course, and I may aid you in retain- 
ing the suggestions of these phrases by discussing 
them under the three heads — "Walk in Perfect 
Love; Walk in Present Light, and Walk by a 
Prudent Look. 



94 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

WALK IN PERFECT LOVE 

"Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear chil- 
dren ; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved 
us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and 
a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour" 
(vss. 1-2). A short sentence will somewhat fully 
compass these two verses. 

Let Christ be your copy ! The word translated 
"followers of God" here is even better phrased 
"Imitators of God." We are justified, therefore, 
in our suggestion that Christ be our copy, since 
Christ is the "express image of the Father," and 
only as we come into fellowship with Him can we 
know God. It was Christ "offering himself for 
us," "a sacrifice to God/' that was a revelation of 
the Father's heart. 

In the light of this act John 3 :16, "God so loved 
the world" became meaningful; and it is in the 
acceptance of this sacrifice, — "a sweet smelling 
savour to God," — that we have the assurance of 
the acceptability of our service when rendered in 
the Saviour's spirit. 

The highest type of service, therefore, possible 
to the performance of a Christian must at once 
be inspired by affection and at the same time in- 
volve a sacrifice. Such an act in God's sight is of 
great price and can never be forgotten. Judas, 
in his deadness to spiritual things, did not appre- 



THKEE FEATUEES OF THE BELIEVEE'S WALK 95 

date this pertinent truth! When Mary of Beth- 
any, came with her costly offering for the head of 
the Master, he complained that it might have been 
sold for three hundred pence and given to the 
poor, little realizing that an act of such love would 
bear fruit in the poor's behalf far exceeding that 
sum. The centuries, however, have demonstrated 
the unthinkable proportions of a sacrifice per- 
meated by love, and the poor of the world have 
been gainers by it thousands upon thousands of 
times, and in a measure past computation. Some- 
time since I was in an Eastern city at the edge of 
which is located a struggling Bible School. Two 
brothers of an adjoining town began a year or two 
ago to endow the institution by setting aside a cer- 
tain cash sum as an interest payment so that the 
school might have the accrued benefits therefrom, 
as from all endowment. But who can compute the 
interest upon Mary's gift, prompted by the love of 
God and loyalty to Christ? And who can tell 
what is to be the final fruits of affectionate en- 
deavors? Truly, as Prof. Findlay has said: 
"Every act of love rendered to Him deepens the 
channel of sympathy by which relief and blessing 
come to sorrowing humanity." 

But this walk in perfect love involves a second 
suggestion ; namely — 

Let cleanness be your custom. "Fornication, 
and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be 



96 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

once named among you, as becometh saints : nei- 
ther filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, 
which are not convenient: but rather giving of 
thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, 
nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an 
idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of 
Christ and of God" (vs. 3-5). It is evident that the 
Apostle, writing by the pen of inspiration, in- 
cluded in this denunciation both physical and 
moral uncleanness. Most men readily consent to 
the uncleanness of fornication, and pass just sen- 
tence upon the whoremonger; but, in the judg- 
ment of the Apostle, "foolish talking" and "jest- 
ing" and "covetousness, which is idolatry," be- 
long in the same catagory of unclean things, and 
the people guilty of them, as those guilty of the 
former iniquities, are declared disinherited from 
"the kingdom of Christ and of God." 

There is then, a befouling of the body; and 
there is also a besmirching of the soul. Leprosy — 
which was the expression of the first, was none the 
less the symbol or type of the second ; and Chris- 
tianity is known to be the foe of both! In fact, 
we have long had a saying "cleanliness is next 
to godliness," and while there is no biblical phrase 
corresponding with this remark, there is abundant 
authority in the Book for believing that Chris- 
tianity and cleanness are well nigh synonymous. 
We are told that when Mary Moffatt, wife of the 



THEEE FEATUEES OF THE BELIEVEE'S WALK 97 

great missionary Robert, began to have conver- 
sions among the poor down-trodden women of 
Africa, the husbands came to Moffatt and said 
that they could no longer afford to have conver- 
sions continue, for their wives required too much 
soap and calico ! In other words, cleanness and 
clothing came as the instant resultant of Christ's 
reception. Seven dippings in the Jordan river 
resulted in clean flesh for Naaman; but nothing 
short of the baptism of the Spirit can result in a 
clean soul for any man. In the sight of man, 
"who looketh on the outward appearance," a clean 
body well nigh suffices ; but in the sight of God, 
"who looketh on the heart," a clean soul is even 
more essential. "Fornication" is physical adul- 
tery, but "covetousness" is spiritual adultery ; the 
first is committed in the flesh against one's fellow, 
the second is committed in spirit against one's 
God. If you would know why God speaks of this 
as "filthiness" also, and affirms it as render- 
ing one too unclean to make possible any inheri- 
tance in His kingdom, let a man, goaded on by 
inordinate greed of gain, by misrepresentation and 
other lying methods, take money from your pock- 
ets, and as you think of him afterward, you will 
know the exact meaning of this text. His presence 
affects you as would the presence of a physical 
leper, and you would feel less befouled if you 
went into a pest house and shook hands with a 



98 EPHESIANS— THE THBEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

man who had the smallpox than you would feel if 
you had to touch the fingers that yesterday filched 
your pocket. How else, then, can God think of 
covetousness than to condemn it, for if the rob- 
bery of man is unclean how much more the con- 
duct that robs God, keeping back His tithe and 
appropriating it to our personal advantage. 

But the Apostle has not yet finished the dis- 
cussion of this walk in perfect love! He makes 
a third suggestion, namely — 

Let discernment be your keeper. "Let no man 
deceive you with vain words ; for because of 
these things cometh the wrath of God upon the 
children of disobedience. Be ye not therefore par- 
takers with them" (vss. 6-7). The longer one lives 
the more he marvels at the number of people who 
can be deceived, and the ease with which it is 
accomplished. You remember that our leading 
showman Barnum once declared that the Amer- 
ican public liked to be humbugged. It is not 
strange that the children of Satan are easy sub- 
jects of deception, for their father is a liar from 
the beginning; but the very fact that one has re- 
ceived Christ ought to make that devil's deed 
more difficult. 

There are certain kinds of fish in the north- 
ern lakes that will take any bait, but they are not 
the best kind. You can rig up what you please and 
pull it through the water and the pickerel will 
bite ; but good fish behave with more intelligence 



THEEE FEATURES OF THE BELIEVER'S WALK 99 

and exercise more discernment. I have some- 
times thought that we could almost tell now what 
the line of division between the good and the bad 
will be in the last day by the fact that men who 
know God and His Word are not attracted to 
every fad that comes into view, nor caught by 
every suggestion spoken in the name of "science" 
or uttered in the name of professed "patriotism." 
Years ago Prof. Findlay said of certain men in 
the old country, "If these men have their way and 
European society renounces the authority of God, 
how quickly will that tree of God's planting, the 
vast growth of Christian virtue and beneficence, 
wither to its topmost bough ; and the next storm 
will bring it to the ground, with all its stately 
strength. Unbelief in God lays the ax at the root 
of human society." And lately on the fields of 
Europe, we had the confirmation of Findlay's 
fears ; and yet, so easily are men deceived that 
America is not learning her lesson, but with all 
the rapidity consequent upon her prosperity and 
powers, she is walking into the same deadly trap 
in which the devil has already taken one half the 
nations of the earth. He told them that the "way 
of peace" was to "prepare for war" and they fool- 
ishly believed it. And yet, the uncovering of that 
deception before our very eyes is not sufficient to 
correct either our judgment or our conduct. 
Truly, as Findlay continued "Since Jesus Christ 



100 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

our forerunner entered the heavenly places, the 
anchor of human hopes has been cast within the 
veil; if that anchor drags there is no other that 
will hold. The rocks are plain to see on which 
our richly freighted ship of life will flounder. 
Without the religion of Jesus Christ, our civiliza- 
tion is not worth a hundred years' purchase." 

Oh, Paul! you put a better policy before the 
Christian world when you besought them against 
such devilish practices, and warned them against 
"the wrath of God," destined to come upon "the 
children of disobedience." 

WALK IN PRESENT LIGHT. 

The Apostle's injunction is "Walk as children 
of light." He pleads for the essentials to the walk 
in that light. Let us take note of some of them. 

Profit by past darkness. There is an intimate 
relation between the seventh and eighth verse 
"Be not ye therefore, partaker with them. For ye 
were sometimes darkness." Jesus tells us that 
when "the eye is evil the body also is full of dark- 
ness", and enjoins us to take heed, therefore, that 
the light which is in us be not darkness." The 
world is full of men and women who imagine 
that they have light, but it is not the light that 
illumines any spiritual path, the rays of which 
reach the bounds of the soul at all. One never 
realizes this fact until he has found the true light ; 



THEEE FEATURES OF THE BELIEVER'S WALK 101 

then he looks back upon the light in which he for- 
merly walked with veritable shuddering. Bishop 
Whipple, Apostle to the North American Indians, 
said, "An Indian came six hundred miles to visit 
me at my home. When he reached the door he 
knelt at my feet and said, 'I kneel to tell you of 
my gratitude that you pitied the Red Man !' He 
then told in a simple, a straightforward way of 
how he had been a wild man, Hying far beyond the 
Turtle Mountains. He knew his people were 
perishing. He said, "I never looked into the face 
of my little child without making my heart sick. 
My father had told me that there was a Great 
Spirit, and I have often gone to the woods and 
tried to ask Him for help, and I only got the 
sound of my voice." And then the Indian looked 
into Bishop Whipple's face and said, "You do 
not know what I mean ! You never stood in the 
dark and reached out your hand and took hold of 
nothing." 

But the Red Man was mistaken; that is what 
every unregenerate man is compelled to do. 
What a change, therefore, to come out of such 
a curtained night into the bright day of God's 
light. It is doubtful if, of all the miracles wrought 
by Jesus Christ, there was any one that so im- 
pressed its subject as the healing of the blind; 
and we do not marvel that when the blind man 
near Jericho had his sight given him, that he not 



102 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

only followed Jesus but went glorifying God ; 
nor yet that all the people, when they saw it, gave 
praise unto God ! And yet, that matchless miracle 
was but a slight type of the more marvelous 
change yet accomplished when the darkened soul 
is brought into the light of God ! It is an experi- 
ence never to be forgotten and the memory of it 
ought to be not alone to our profit, but to God's 
praise. 

The man who experiences it ought to find him- 
self ready and willing to obey the Apostle's in- 
junction and walk as a child of light; in other 
words : — 

We should practice present light. Paul tells 
us how we may do that ; by the exercise of "good- 
ness" and "righteousness" and "truth" which are 
fruits of the illuminating spirit. Each of these 
words suggests a separate grace, and the three of 
them combine in making Christian character. The 
first of these is a fundamental of the Christian life. 
It is hard for the world to believe that a man is a 
Christian man unless he be a "good" man. In the 
early history of the church Barnabas was an out- 
standing disciple and of him it is written, "He 
was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and 
of faith, and much people was added unto the 
Lord." Jesus said, "A good man out of the good 
treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is 
good." And again, "For a good man, peradven- 
ture, one would even dare to die." 



THEEE FEATURES OF THE BELIEVER'S WALK 103 

Somebody has illustrated the vitality of good 
deeds by telling of a traveler in the south of Spain, 
who, coming at night-fall under the heights of 
Granada, wearied with the long journey, heard 
the splash and ripple and murmur of running wa- 
ters by the side of the dusty road ; and on in- 
vestigation, discovered that they were the irri- 
gating streams whose channels had been cut five 
centuries before by the Moors. The empire of the 
Moors had fallen, their creed had been suppressed 
by fire and sword, their splendid palaces were now 
a mass of ruins, but the streams of water with 
which they refreshed the thirsty places and turned 
a desert into a garden, still flowed on. So it is 
with goodness ; it opens a fountain which brings 
freshness and fertility to our hearts and to all 
lives touched by its benign influence. 

But to "goodness" the Apostle adds "righteous- 
ness". This, while an equal essential to the prac- 
tice of present light, is a more austere and for- 
bidding virtue. "For a righteous man scarce 
would one die". He is a man who will have no 
wrong, who will not endure its practice in his 
presence, who will not be silent at the sight of 
it, who holds in contempt the superficial and the 
sentimental, and demands the justice of the gen- 
uine. Such people are not popular as a rule with 
their fellows who want to live a life of ease, of 
luxury, and possibly of lust; but they are ap- 



104 EPHESIANS— THE THKEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

proved of God ; and the application is wider than 
the individual, for "righteousness exalteth a na- 
tion." 

But to these two must be added "truth!" We 
have come upon a time in which thousands of 
men, and not a few of them ministers of the Gos- 
pel, are disposed to believe that if one is "good" 
— by which men mean, "correct in habit", it makes 
little difference what philosophies or opinions he 
may entertain or seek to propagate. And yet, the 
declaration of the Apostle is that "truth" is also 
a fruit of the Spirit; and it is a scientific axiom 
that "truth is the most intolerant of all possible 
things." No man can be spiritually free who does 
not know "the truth ;" and no man should attempt 
to be a spiritual instructor who does not believe 
the truth, and we have a plain declaration con- 
cerning God's Book— "Thy Word is truth." The 
man, therefore, who disputes the authority of 
that Book does more than injure himself; if you 
will pardon my coining a phrase — he unChrist's 
himself. Joseph Cook, in one of his poems says : 

"Light obeyed increaseth light, 
Light resisted bringeth night. 
Who shall give me will to choose, 
If the love of light I lose?" 

Ward Beecher must have been thinking along 

the very line of Cook's statement — "Light obeyed 

increaseth light," and "Light resisted bringeth 

night" — when he said to the people of Plymouth 



THEEE FEATUEES OF THE BELIEVER'S WALK 105 

Church "We have here a large organization for 
diffusing knowledge, and we are brought to a 
standstill in many respects because we have here 
people who are not willing to take their light and 
use it. There is in this congregation a vast 
amount of educated ability that is rotting in sen- 
timental selfishness/' which is only another way 
of putting before the church-men the difference 
between profession and possession, between living 
in the true light and radiating the same forth, — 
shining by a borrowed light into the dark places 
of the world as the moon shines upon the earth, 
or on the other hand giving occasion to Christ's 
words "If the light that is in thee be darkness; 
how great is that darkness." 

But the Apostle makes another appeal namely 
that 

We prove the light, and reprove darkness. He 
expresses it in the words, "Prove what is accepta- 
ble unto the Lord, and have no fellowship with 
the unfruitful works of darkness ; but rather, re- 
prove them." Now, the proof of light is in our 
behaviour before others, and the reproof of dark- 
ness in our attitude toward others. But let it be 
understood that a man, in order to reprove dark- 
ness, does not need to fly like a fury into every 
face upon which the shadows have fallen. The 
fact is that silent reproof is often more effective 
than a spoken one, and Paul beseeches these 
Ephesian christians to reprove by works rather 



106 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

than by words ; and reminds them that "it is a 
shame even to speak of those things" which are 
done by the unregenerate in secret. "But all things 
that are reproved are made manifest by the light ; 
for whatsoever maketh manifest is light." In other 
words, the way to shame a sinner's conduct is to 
set it in the presence of sinlessness ; the way to 
reprove sin is to practice holiness. In my youth 
I knew a young man who was famed for the fact 
that he never spake unkindly of his neighbors, 
and I noted, even then, that other people seldom 
passed calumny in his presence. A recent writer 
tells of another who always refused to listen to 
calumny. If one began to voice it in his presence 
he would straightway leave the circle. He never 
said a word, but in silence he took his hat and 
went. He was not a cynic. Under ordinary and 
righteous circumstances his face was a sheen, 
wreathed in smiles ; but the moment his com- 
panions turned to uncomplimentary phrases re- 
garding others, there was a silence and he was 
gone. You can easily imagine the result ; his ears 
were not assailed by many calumnies. It is re- 
ported that Archbishop Leighton once said that 
"if nobody took calumny in and lodged it, it 
would starve and die of itself." 

Returning then, to our text, we restate the 
Apostle's appeal, that we profit by our past dark- 
ness, that we practice our present light, and that 
we prove light and reprove darkness. "Where- 



THREE FEATURES OF THE BELIEVER'S WALK 107 

fore he saith, Awake thou that sleepeth, and arise 
from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light/' 
That is the portion of the quickened soul. 
Finally 

WALK BY A PRUDENT LOOK. 

"See then that ye walk circumspectly." You 
know the meaning of the word "circumspectly" 
— looking ahead, and looking around, — taking in 
your surroundings, to such an extent that you will 
not be stumbling over stones in the way or fall- 
ing into pits, or putting your feet into traps. In 
the language of the Apostle "Walk not as fools, 
but as wise." 

Wisdom should characterize the Christian. It 
is no excuse to say, "I was not born with the 
illumination of wisdom" if one has been "born 
again." As a son of God, he has claims upon the 
Father's promises "If any man lack wisdom let 
him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, 
and upbraideth not, and it shall be given unto 
him." The children of darkness are hardly con- 
demnable when they stumble; the path before 
their eyes is invisible! It should not be so with 
the "children of the day." And yet, the times are 
evil ; the arch-enemy of the Christian is mighty 
and the lesser foes are a multitude, and nothing 
short of carefulness will keep the Christian's feet 
from slipping, his profession from being turned 
to hypocrisy and his standing to a fall. And yet, 



108 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

in view of the promises of God to grant wisdom to 
those who seek it, what excuse have we for fail- 
ure ? Have we come to doubt the words of Solo- 
mon, "Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it 
not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. 
Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee : love 
her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the prin- 
cipal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all 
thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and 
she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to 
honor, when thou dost embrace her. She shall 
give to thine head an ornament of grace : a crown 
of glory shall she deliver to thee" (Prov. 4:5-9). 
In fact, when one watches the course of this age, 
he realizes how much it needs to hear Solomon 
again, who after having walked in both ways, 
came back to tell his people that "in the light of 
the king's countenance is life ; and his favor is as 
a cloud of the latter rain" and to remark "How 
much better it is to get wisdom than gold ! and 
to get understanding rather to be chosen than 
silver" (16:16). "Wherefore be not unwise, but 
understanding what the will of the Lord is." 

Wantonness should insult the spiritual. "And 
be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess ; but 
be filled with the Spirit." This Scripture certain- 
ly had a wider interpretation, however, than in- 
temperance and drunkenness. The great principle 
of spirituality as opposed to carnality is involved 
in the sentence. We are fully persuaded that the 



THEEE FEATUEES OF THE BELIEVER'S WALK 109 

carnality of this present time does not run even 
chiefly to excess in drunkenness. The more one 
looks upon society and realizes the difficulty of 
distinguishing by their conduct the men who 
name the name of Christ from those who have no 
fellowship with the Church whatever, the more 
he will be sympathetic with a recent writer who 
calls much of this conduct "the new unrighteous- 
ness" and who says "The essence in the new sin 
is betrayal rather than aggression/' and declares 
"the little finger of chicanery has come to be 
thicker than the loins of violence." To illustrate ; 
If you want to pick the pockets of a fellow do it 
by a railway rebate instead of with fingers, and 
you escape all the opprobrium that follows upon 
the latter course. If you want to murder a man 
for money, do not employ the old time bludgeon 
but sell an adulterated food, and you can do the 
deed just as effectively and profit by it to the ex- 
tent of millions, and move in the "elect" circles. 
If you want to burglarize a house, do not employ 
a jimmy or as brutal a looking thing as a pistol, 
but meet the head of it in his office and put up a 
twenty minute lie about the advantages of your 
Ins. Co. and take away his money, as I had a man 
do with me recently. If you want to get rich faster 
still, do not scuttle your ship, but scuttle your 
town and take the profits from special legislation. 
Truly, does this writer say, "The stealings and 
slayings that lurk in the complexities of our so- 



110 EPHESIANS— THE THREE -FOLD EPISTLE 

cial relations are not deeds of the dive, the dark 
alley, the lonely road and the midnight hour. 
They require no nocturnal prowling with muf- 
fled step and bated breath ; no weapon nor offer of 
violence. Unlike the old-time villain, the latter- 
day malefactor does not wear a slouch hat and a 
comforter, breathe forth curses and an odor of 
gin; go about his nefarious work with clenched 
teeth and an evil scowl." And man, if you would 
steal from your fellow his light, get him to give 
up his personal God and worship a principle, sur- 
render the Saviour in exchange for a term, — 
Truth, and the personality of the Holy Spirit in 
barter for the promise of mental peace ; smile 
while you lie and the thing is easy. That is the 
"newer unrighteousness." And Satan never did 
his best until he cast away his mask of darkness 
and assumed an angel's veil of light. No wonder 
the Apostle urges us to walk "circumspectly" 
and expects us to behave not as "fools but as 
wise", "redeeming the time" since the "days are 
evil." 

But He expects even better; He expects us to 
speak to one another in "psalms and hymns and 
spiritual songs, singing and making melody in 
our hearts to. the Lord." 

In other words He expects salvation to express 
itself in a song. Why should He not expect it? 
It has always been so ! The saved saints have 
something to sing about, and you cannot take 
that something away. You may put them into 



THEEE FEATURES OF THE BELIEVER'S WALK 111 

prison ; you may manacle their hands, chain their 
feet ; but in that midnight prison those in the 
adjoining cells will hear Paul and Silas voicing 
themselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual 
songs. It is the rapture of an indwelling spir- 
it; it is the voice of expectancy keyed to the 
note of praise. Henry Crocker tells about his 
friend Scott Dixon, the negro who was known 
as "Scotty" and who used to keep a lunch- 
room in a railroad station in Rhode Island. Scot- 
ty was very popular and was known everywhere 
as a sincere christian and a true gentleman. When 
he was a young man Scotty paid his master a defi- 
nite sum annually and was permitted to have 
whatever he could make beyond that. He found 
employment in a large iron works and became 
skilled in the handling of the forge and the deli- 
cate work of judging when the steel was rightly 
tempered, or when the metal had reached just the 
right heat to be worked. At his bidding the heavy 
forges were swung from the fire to the anvil and 
beaten into the desired shape under the blows of 
four sledge hammers, swung by as many brawny 
men. The establishment was a large one and the 
number of workers so many that the noise was 
great. One morning Scotty came to his work 
with a heavy heart. Sin rested upon him and 
darkened everything. The smoke and din of the 
great factory only added to his depression. Every 
thing was loud and his burden beyond his 



112 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

strength. Then for a few minutes he left his 
forge and stealing away to a back shed, he knelt 
and lifted his soul to God in the prayer of the 
penitent sinner. The response was instant. Great 
peace came into his soul, and a joy that was as 
great as his pain had been. He went back to the 
factory, and in speaking of it in later life he said, 
"Never can I forget the music that greeted me! 
The whole air was filled as with the sound of 
bells. The ring of those anvils was the sweetest 
music I had ever heard. They all seemed to be 
singing a chorus, an anthem of praise to God." It 
is little wonder then that the converts to Christ 
have always expressed themselves "in Psalms and 
hymns and spiritual songs" and Paul's plea will, 
with the spiritual, find an easy response. Like 
the Psalmist of old, when we have sung to the 
best of our endeavor we will appreciate that our 
praise is all too small, and will call upon the hosts 
of earth and of heaven, and say "let everything 
that hath breath praise the Lord !" 



CHAPTER SIX 

THE THREE-FOLD APPEAL TO 
THE FAMILY 



THE THREE-FOLD APPEAL TO 
THE FAMILY 

Ephesians 5:21 — 6:9. 

^Tg N taking up this additional lesson from the 
& |S Ephesian epistle, one finds no occasion to 
«»■» change from the three-fold basis upon 
which the entire study has proceeded. We here 
have the three-fold appeal to the family. 

Since this epistle is distinctly a church epistle, 
the family herein described is necessarily a Chris- 
tian family. Quite truly, as Dr. Alexander Mac- 
Laren said, "In the family, Christianity has most 
signally displayed its power of dignifying, honor- 
ing and sanctifying earthly relations. Indeed 
that domestic life, as seen in thousands of Chris- 
tian homes, is truly a Christian creation." The 
unity, integrity and sanctity of the household was 
never fully seen or clearly admitted save by those 
who, being students of God's Word, caught the 
Divine conception. Of all the peoples of the 
earth the Jewish and Christian, alone, have con- 
ceived and accomplished the ideal family. 

In that relationship as here discussed by the 
Apostle, he discovers Wives and Husbands, Chil- 
dren and Parents, Slaves and Masters ! That is 



116 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

the three-fold relationship of a single house. He 
makes his appeal to each of these in turn. 
First of all to 

WIVES AND HUSBANDS 
Let me here remark that whether one believes 
in verbal inspiration or not; whether he thinks 
that the epistle is Paul's creation or the dictation 
of the Holy Ghost, he must be impressed with a 
double order that the apostle here introduces. 
And, we are inclined to think that if one study 
this order carefully he will be compelled to admit ' 
that it is also a divine order. Purposely wives, 
children and servants are placed in one class ; 
husbands, parents and masters in another. From 
the first the Apostle demands submission. On 
the part of the second he counsels a careful and 
generous administration. In each instance he 
speaks to the weaker first and to the stronger 
later ; and there is an implication that wives and 
children and servants are first in need of counsel, 
while husbands and parents and masters are in 
no wise infallible in conduct. 

If we are to listen to the Scriptures at least 
three things are definitely determined. 

1 — The wife's submission is here clearly com- 
manded! "Wives submit yourselves unto your 
own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the hus- 
band is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the 
head of the church, and he is the saviour of the 
body" (vss. 22,2s). 
Jf ,' '1 I yi^J^y^^^ Ayr^^^^ ^ ^4-O^u^lo *s^ <^r 



THE THKEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE FAMILY 117 

Doubtless some will smile that so old-fashioned 
a notion should even be brought forward at this 
time in the twentieth century, and others will de- 
clare that this Bible teaching is a touch of the 
barbarism of the day in which the Apostle lived 
and wrote. But I beg you to withhold both judg- 
ments until you have given consideration to what 
is involved in this plain teaching of Scripture. 
Some of us believe that the marvel of Revelation 
is its accord with reason, and the proof of inspira- 
tion is in scientific accuracy; and, strange as it 
may sound to say it, I am fully persuaded that 
here reason and revelation speak together and 
the counsel of an apostle is approved by the 
course of history. It is doubtful whether there 
has ever been a single instance of the reversal 
of this teaching of revelation that has resulted » A 
~^\ well. In fifty years of observation we cannot re- Y\ L 
call one case where the woman ruled the home 
and the man was the vassal of her will and word, ♦ 
and both were content, and the family a model. In 
fact, we could go further and say that we have 
never known a woman, no matter how weak her 
husband was, who took the headship of the house 
and maintained it as her right, who was herself 
half satisfied, or at all spiritual. I am inclined to 
think that the great Alexander MacLaren had it 
right when he declared "No woman ever had a 
satisfactory wedded life who does not look up to 
and reverence her husband. * * * For its full satis- 



118 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

faction a woman's heart needs to serve where it 
loves." We know women who are neglected, 
maltreated and tyrannized over by indifferent, 
vindictive and brutal men, who are more positive- 
ly content with life itself and keep a more fem- 
inine and affectionate spirit then do their sisters 
who live in affluence, command every situation, 
give orders to competent husbands, as they would 
give them to slaves, and in modern parlance "run 
the ranch." 

Twenty five years ago, I became a woman suf- ^~ < }/ j JL 
fragist and as opportunities have risen, I have 3 *~ 
advocated the vote as a woman's right. Today I 
seriously doubt whether I have had either reason 
or revelation to back up my opinions upon that 
subject. A study of this text, and related Scrip- 
ture, has shaken my convictions, and I have been 
compelled to ask myself the question if the wom- 
an who modestly and with the spirit of reverence 
for her husband, and in a sweet enslavement for 
her children, influences the house as she can do 
only when she occupies such a place and exercises 
such a spirit, is not already the determining factor 
in social and political life? She, who holds the i 
heart of her husband and controls the conduct of / 
her sons, governs the state. She does it directly, 
positively, and gloriously. If she fails to do these 
two things, she thereby proves her unfitness to 
rule in the state. 

It is said that there are exceptions to all rules, 
but the Apostle is careful not to pronounce an ex- 



THE THKEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE FAMILY 119 

ception here. It is a real question whether his- 
tory has created one. I have in mind at this mo- 
ment two people who have lived as husband and 
wife half a century. The woman is physically 
and mentally the stronger member of that union, 
but in fifty years she has never once made the 
husband feel that fact. She counsels with him as 
carefully as though he were a Gladstone in in- 
tellect, and reverences him as truly as though he 
were a prince, and the sweetness of the relation- 
ship is at once an inspiration and an ensample. 
Such women find little difficulty in "sanctifying - 
even unbelieving husbands" and after all, that is 
the greatest work that any wife can accomplish. | 
When eternity breaks, presiding over public as- 
semblies in stunning gowns, making eloquent 
speeches, playing the part even of a Washington - 
picket in the interests of suffrage, will look mighty 
small, if the whole of it has resulted in the hus- 
band's spiritual demoralization, and in spiritual 
death to the neglected souls of the children. God 
has spoken. "The husband is the head of the 
wife, even as Christ is the head of the church," 
and whenever the Church forgets the worship of 
Christ and assumes to be itself ruler in all spirit- 
ual things, ecclesiastical anarchy is the result; 
and, the disaster to spiritual things is no greater 
than a reversal of this divine relation is disas- 
trous to the domestic realm. "Therefore, as the 
Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives 



120 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

submit themselves unto their own husbands in 
everything." 

But Paul did not stop here ; he would be a poor 
preacher if he did. No household would be com- 
plete, and no family would be ideal without the 
proper headship; hence the necessity of counsel 
to husbands ! 

Affection is the first law of a husband's life. 
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also 
loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that 
He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing 
of water by the word, that He might present it to 
Himself- a glorious church not having spot or 
wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be 
holy and without blemish. So ought men to love 
their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth 
his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet 
hated his own flesh ; but nourisheth and cherish- 
eth it, even as the Lord the church: for we are 
members of His body, of His flesh, and of His 
bones. For this cause shall a man leave his fa- 
ther and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, 
and they two shall be one flesh" (vss. 25-31). 

We would think it almost strange that Paul 
does not counsel a wife to love her husband. Here 
is another proof of the inspiration of our text. 
Women seldom need to be counselled to love: 

"Man's love is of man's life, a thing apart, 
'Tis woman's whole existence!" 



THE THKEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE FAMILY 121 

Her temptation, as a rule, is not so much to 
fail at the point of affection ; the fact that she is 
a woman fairly secures her there ! Her whole 
nature reinforces her affectionate conduct! Her 
temptation is to quit her realm and lord it over 
all. 

On the other hand, the husband is made to rule. 
In his very creation God gave to him the govern- 
ing spirit, and there is danger that our natural 
talents should expand to the point where the less 
natural, but equally desirable ones, shall be 
crowded out. Affection is not so natural to man 
as it is to woman ; but if he is to live in the mar- 
riage relation it is even more needful. His very 
masculinity may tempt him to too many man- 
dates, and his conscious physical power may 
tempt him to be a conscienceless potentate, if 
not a tyrant! I have known men, and I now 
know some, who at the office, in the place of busi- 
ness, are smiling and sweet the whole day long, 
suave and civil to every patron approaching 
them, but when they once turn in at home they 
are critical, caustic and even contemptible. Such 
men cannot lift their wives in spiritual things, as 
Christ exalted the church, and will not, in the 
last day, present them as trophies of their grace, 
as He will present His bride, the Church, whom 
He hath redeemed by His own blood. 

The longer I live the more I am persuaded that 
the average husband is making a mistake at the 



122 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

very point where he has supposed himself to be 
most successful. He can delve sixteen hours a 
day, and coin a mint of money and construct a 
beautiful house, and have it swept about by a 
great and attractive lawn, and multiply his auto- 
mobiles and increase the number of his servants, 
and every bit of it will be accepted by the woman 
who is his mate as her natural right, and then 
when he has no time left in which to be tender 
and gentle and gracious and complimentary as in 
the old days of his poverty and wooing, she is al- 
most certain to conclude that his affection has 
gone. If I had the counsel of young men, enter- 
ing upon married life, I should advise that if they 
want domestic happiness, stay on the basis of 
comparative poverty ; but multiply tender ex- 
pressions, continue in gracious conduct, and, 
above all things, forget not the potency of man- 
ners and flowers. Paul may have been a bache- 
lor, and some may say "he knew nothing on the 
subject of domesticity;" but God was not ig- 
norant, and when by the Holy Ghost, He moved 
Paul to say these things he was stating the ab- 
solute essentials of wedded success ! 

In these mutual relations there exists a symbol 
of mystery. "This is a great mystery, but I speak 
concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless 
let every one of you in particular so love his wife 
even as himself ; and the wife see that she rever- 
ence her husband" (vss. 32-33). The word "mys- 



THE THBEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE FAMILY 123 

tery" is here properly employed; and yet there 
are some points of parallelism between the rela- 
tion of husband and wife and Christ and His 
church, that are not difficult to trace. According 
to the first book in the Old Testament the side 
of man was opened to make the wife possible ; 
according to the first book in the New Testament 
the side of Christ was opened to make the church 
possible. According to the Old Testament the 
Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam that 
that painful process might be accomplished; ac-. 
cording to the New Testament the Lord caused 
a deep sleep to fall upon Christ that the church 
might be brought to her birth. According to the 
Old Testament the woman was a very part of 
Adam; according to the New Testament the 
church is a very part of Christ. According to the 
Old Testament Adam and Eve became one flesh ; 
according to the New Testament Christ and the 
church are also one ; He is the head and she is the 
body. According to the Old Testament Adam 7 U 9 / 
deliberately chose to share the destiny of Eve,/) pft * J 
brought about by sin ; according to the New / ' 
Testament, Christ deliberately determined to suf- 
fer the sentence that had been justly passed 
upon "His own !" According to the Old Testa- 
ment the promises of redemption made to Adam 
were shared in by Eve; according to the New 
Testament, the redemption wrought by Christ is 
enjoyed to the full by the church. 



124 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

Prof. Findlay had a biblical basis for saying, 
"The bond that links husband and wife, lying at 
the basis of collective human existence, has in 
turn its ground in the relation of Christ to hu- 
manity." He sees a similitude that runs through 
this entire Scripture and finds in the bath of the 
bride a type of the washing of the church by "the 
water of the Word," as well as a symbol of the 
baptismal rite which typifies a cleansing of the 
filth of the soul, and suggests a clean commence- 
ment in the experience of grace; and, as Christ 
and His redeemed church work together for the 
salvation of the world, so husband and wife are 
to work together for the salvation of the house. 
Louis Albert Banks said what we have often 
noted, "Out in the western mountains, every 
train up the grade is drawn by two locomotives. 
It requires the combined power of two engines to 
reach the summit. So the building of a true home 
is a matter of such tremendous importance, and 
the difficulties in the way are so many and so 
complicated, that it requires the combined forces 
of husband and wife to accomplish it." 

But the Apostle passes to 

CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 

There is little occasion for the introduction of 

a chapter here ! It would be far more fitting to 

have put that break between verses twenty one 

and twenty two of chapter five ; or better yet, not 



THE THREE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE FAMILY 125 

to have created it at all. "Children obey your 
parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy 
father and mother ; (which is the first command- 
ment with promise) that it may be well with thee, 
and thou mayest live long on the earth." 

The child is to be both obedient and filial. He 
is to take commands and execute them. But his 
spirit, while about it, is to be expressed by the 
phrase "Honor thy father and thy mother." 
There may be one exception in the matter of 
obedience, and that is when the parent's com- 
mand clashes with the plain will of God. "Ye 
ought to obey God rather than men!" There 
are no exceptions to the demand that father and 
mother are to be "honored." I have heard people 
say, "I cannot honor my father, he is a drunken 
lout." "I cannot honor my mother, she is an ig- 
norant wench !" And yet, I have known people 
who were big enough and sweet enough to honor 
unworthy parents ! And, on the other hand, I 
have known children who, just because they hap- 
pened to know more of geometry than father 
does, or speak a better English than mother is 
capable of uttering, straightway imagine that 
they no longer have any occasion of honoring the 
parents that brought them into being, loved them 
with an unutterable affection, sacrificed to make 
their successes possible, denied self for the chil- 
dren's sake, and stood ready at any moment to 
die even in the babe's behalf. 



126 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

The times upon which we have come have so 
many suggestions of the end of this age that one 
can hardly call into question the world's approach 
to an awful catastrophe ; and yet with the "wars, 
and rumors of wars," "famine," "pestilence," de- 
fection from the faith, profession of religion with- 
out the power of it, no one of these is more 
marked than the spirit of insubordination which 
characterizes the twentieth century. Men and 
women alike are revolting against government; 
socialism is in the ascendency, and anarchism is 
too often its animating spirit ; and, I suppose that 
when the truth is known, we will discover that all 
of this has had its birth in "disobedience to par- 
ents" which is now common, the world over, and 
which is one of the greatest curses of the hour. 
It may be possible that parents are to blame in 
having relaxed parental authority, in having 
swung from the old extreme of tyrannical gov- 
ernment to the misplaced tenderness of the pres- 
ent time. But the fact of insubordination is no 
longer debatable; too much liberty has resulted 
in license. Love without law may express 
"Science and Health," but it is not in line with 
the Scriptures; may represent Mrs. Eddy's bab- 
blings but not God's Book, or God's behaviour. 
The child lacking in filial reverence, the child rev- 
eling in rebellion, is not only a menace to the 
peace of the house of which he is a member, but 
a prophecy of menace to society and to the State, 



THE THBEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE FAMILY 127 

and, eventually, the destroyer of his own soul. 
There was a time when the great and good Dr. 
Johnson walked into the market place at Litch- 
field bare-headed, and let the cold rain beat upon 
him, and when the passers by inquired why he 
thus behaved, he answered, "To punish myself 
for my disobedience to my dear dead father." 
But somehow conscience does not work as clear- 
ly now and as effectively as it did in our fore-fa- 
ther's time ; not every child who disobeys mother 
and rebels against father feels remorse for the 
same and suffers the stings of conscience in con- 
sequence. Yet this command to obey and to 
honor is declared by the Apostle to be right, and 
as long as the relationship of parent to child ex- 
ists the law of the Lord cannot change; and the 
dutiful child will find God forever ready to keep 
His promise, and the obedient child has never yet 
missed the Divine blessing, nor will he while 
God sits upon the circle of the heavens, and rules 
in human affairs. 

Parents are to be both considerate and Chris- 
tian. "And ye fathers, provoke not your children 
to wrath : but bring them up in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord" (6:4). An irritable fa- 
ther makes inconsiderate children; and a non- 
christian mother dooms the spiritual hopes of the 
house. When Paul wrote his letter to the Colos- 
sians he talked on this same subject, and he said, 
"Fathers, provoke not your children to anger" — 



12S EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

bursts of temper. It is a needful injunction ! 
Sometimes the parent will produce a burst of 
temper, and the wrong member of the house is 
punished for its expression. The child has his 
rights, and they should be regarded, and among 
them is, that neither father nor mother demand 
model conduct from children while failing or re- 
fusing to set them a fit example. Authority can- 
not be eternally retained upon the basis of rela- 
tionship ; but it can be forever kept by a right- 
eous course of conduct. Our friend and former 
co-laborer, Louis M. Waterman, has just pub- 
lished a little volume of poems called "Cheery 
Chimes" in which appears one entitled "God and 
Dad," and it reads after this manner: 

"God likes my Pa a lot, I know, 

He's such, a dandy chap! 
If a feller makes a bit of noise 

He doesn't care a rap. 
And after supper, many a time, 

My Pa he plays with me, 
At marbles or at mumblypeg, 

As long as we can see. 

Then, just before it gits quite dark, 

He helps me do my chores; 
And how we laugh, till folks come out 

To listen to our roars! 
God likes my Pa a heap, I know — 

He's such a jolly lot; 
Every time I say: 'Let's have some fun!' 

He's Johnny on the Spot! 

When Sunday comes and Pa he says : 

'Gome, Tom, let's go to church,' 
You bet I go, for do you s'pose 

I'd leave him in the lurch? 



THE THBEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE FAMILY 129 

Not on your life! And when the men 

That preach to us allow 
That God on High is like my Pa, 

That hits me hard, I vow! 

Why, thinkin' God is like my Pa 

Makes lumps come in my throat 
At things I've done, till I calls myself 

A mean and measly shoat! 
And swear I'll be more like my Pa 

So God'll love me, too, 
And I pray to Him, down in my heart : 

'Say, God, just help me through!' 

And He sure does! He's most like Pa — 

He always comes to time, 
And never gives a penny when 

I need a silver dime! 
God likes my Pa a lot, I know, 

And I like God, you bet! 
When I thinks of 'em — say, don't you tell — 

Sometimes my eyes gits wet!" 

West said "The consciousness of my mother's 
love made me a painter." In the last analysis the 
child is like to be a reflection of father and moth- 
er. It was this very thought that broke the heart 
of the late Gen'! Clinton B. Fisk, and brought 
him to Christ. Mrs. Fisk tells the story. "We 
were blessed in our home with two children, a son 
and daughter. It was our joy to each take a child 
and prepare him or her for bed, always, of course, 
hearing these dear little people say their prayers. 
One evening the General had our little daughter. 
She knelt at his knee, and asked God to bless fa- 
ther and mother and brother and then, looking up 
into her father's face, said "Papa, why don't 'oo 
pray?" These words, spoken by the child, so 



130 EPHESIANS— THE THREE-FOLD EPISTLE 

dear to him, broke his heart and brought him to 
Christ, for he said, "If I am to lead her I must 
go before her," and from that night he was a re- 
deemed man. 

The adult's future is determined by the child's 
fidelity. "Honor thy father and thy mother, 
which is the first commandment with promise, 
That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest 
live long on the earth." History is replete with 
illustrations of this promise perfectly fulfilled. 
The world has seldom produced great men except 
out of good children. Almost without exception 
its out-standing souls have had the promise of 
greatness in the delightful conduct of the youth. 
Spurgeon's mother expected great things of 
Charles, and John Quincy Adams' mother great 
things of John, and Abraham Lincoln's stepmoth- 
er great things of the homely lad. Literature is 
packed with testimonials from great men to the 
effect that the very parental expectations became 
the spur to righteous endeavor. 

Robert Eyton, the English author, in a volume 
entitled "The Ten Commandments" in writing in 
chapter five, which involves the honoring of fa- 
ther and mother, reminds us that here we are 
face to face with that which changes not, "with 
no temporary safe-guard for preserving rever- 
ence, or giving a distinctive character to a por- 
tion of time, but we are face to face with an abid- 
ing relationship which will remain while the 



THE THEEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE FAMILY 131 

world lasts, a relationship full of power, full of 
sweetness on both sides. We are here brought 
into touch with Joseph, the son of Jacob, and 
David the son of Jesse, and Jesus the Son of 
Mary, and Augustine the son of Monica, and with 
countless others ; the filial relationship is eter- 
nal." To fail in it is to cloud the future ; to suc- 
ceed in it is to have a right to claim the eternal 
promise of God. 

But Paul passes again, and this time to 

SLAVES AND MASTERS. 

Someone might rise up to remind us that here 
the words of the Apostle are out of date, since 
slavery is abolished; but such would be a very 
superficial remark. Servants and masters are as 
much in evidence now as ever. It is doubtful if 
there will ever be a change until the millennium 
comes and makes all men masters permitting each 
to sit under his own vine and fig tree. In fact, if 
reports be true, the Hun has introduced whole- 
sale and brutal slavery into civilization again. 
And, in this instance, proceeding by brutal force, 
he has enslaved his superior. But even in our 
own so-called Christian America, we have serv- 
ants and masters, and the text teaches three 
things : 

1 — Servants should ever be obedient to mas- 
ters. As the wife is to be obedient to the husband 
and as the children are to be obedient to parents, 



132 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

so servants are to be obedient to masters, "ac- 
cording to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in 
singleness of heart, as unto Christ" (6:5-6). Let 
us not savagely dissent from this teaching and 
therefore fail to give it serious consideration. I 
have been in the employ of men, and have found 
it to my personal profit, as well as to their pleas- 
ure, to be "obedient in everything" and to render 
my service, not with reference to "the master's 
eyes," but with "singleness of heart" and with 
splendid enthusiasm. Had I done less I might 
have been a servant to this day. The law of the 
Lord then, is more in the servant's interest than 
it is in that of the master. The trouble with a 
good many people is that they regard too many 
duties as beneath them. The dignity of labor is 
not one half so much in the thing done as in the 
way it is done. A. J. Gordon, in 1877, in a Moody 
inquiry meeting, asked a splendid looking man if 
he was a Christian, and he answered "Yes." "Then 
go over to that woman and lead her to Christ." 
He turned pale and said, "I couldn't ; I shouldn't 
know what to say!" Then Dr. Gordon himself 
went, but the woman's baby was restless and she 
could not give Dr. Gordon attention. The man, 
watching, saw the situation, and shortly that big 
strong fellow went over, gave the baby some 
sweets, took her in his arms and carried her to 
the other side of the church and held her for an 
hour while Dr. Gordon led the woman to Christ. 



THE THBEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE FAMILY 133 

Tending baby, if it be done in such a spirit, is as 
loyal an engagement for Christ as leading an 
army against the Germans was for country. 

2 — Masters should be graciously considerate of 
their servants. "And ye masters, do the same 
things unto them, forbearing threatening : know- 
ing that your Master also is in heaven" (6:9). It 
has been said a thousand times, and always truth- 
fully, that a good master makes a good servant, 
and the rule is that a gracious master receives 
gracious service. An irritable and oppressive 
master excites rebellion. Some women can never 
keep a cook, and they are the ones that lodge the 
most complaints against the servant classes ; but 
if the truth were known the trouble is not one 
half so much with the incompetence of the em- 
ployee as it is with the inconsiderate and com- 
plaining spirit of the mistress. With a master, 
gracious, and a servant, obedient, no sense of in- 
justice is felt on either side. The old colored fel- 
low and family that belonged to my father when 
the war broke out, could not be driven from the 
home after the emancipation. 

Finally, Before God men are brothers, not 
slaves and masters. I read a recent tract on "Will 
Christ come again?" which discredited the au- 
thority of sacred Scripture, insisted that to be- 
lieve the New Testament was to believe that the 
world was flat, and slavery was desirable, etc/' 
True, Paul does not here say a word against 



134 EPHESIANS— THE THREE -FOLD EPISTLE 

slavery ; and yet he enunciates in this very verse 
a truth destined to destroy it from the face of the 
earth, namely that in God's sight there is no such 
thing as slavery, since there is "no respect of per- 
sons with Him." New Testament teaching has 
taken the chains from the ankles of practically 
every enslaved people in the world. No writer in 
the New Testament struck it more sledgehammer 
blows than Paul, possibly Christ excepted. The 
writer of that tract was as sadly mistaken and un- 
scriptural about the N. T. and slavery as he was 
upon the second coming. Truly did the great 
Alexander MacLaren say of the Gospel which 
Paul preached, "It has in it opinions which would 
pull slavery up by the roots." It was Paul who 
taught that in Christ Jesus "there is neither bond 
nor free." He was wise enough to know what 
many of our moderns miss — The way to reform 
society is to regenerate the individual : the way to 
produce a civilization that would abolish slavery, 
bring an end to the saloon, and finally make war 
upon war itself, is to preach a Gospel of grace and 
peace. So, as Alexander MacLaren claims, "If 
Christianity did not set itself to fall this upas tree 
of slavery, it girdled it, stripped the bark off of it, 
and left it to die" and that is the way to treat eve- 
ry sin. When this doctrine is accepted, dominating 
corporations and union labor organizations will 
find less occasion for controversy and conflict. 
When this doctrine is accepted tyrannical poten- 



THE THKEE-FOLD APPEAL TO THE FAMILY 135 

tates will no longer be in danger from oppressed 
peasants; and "autocracy" and "democracy" will 
be but phrases of past history. The only hope for 
a millennium in this poor world rests absolutely 
with the triumph of the Master's Gospel and with 
the triumphant presence of the Master Himself! 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

THE THREE-FOLD EXPRESSION OF 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 



THE THREE-FOLD EXPRESSION OF 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Ephesians 6:10-24. 

SfjgfN this study we come to the conclusion of 
& IS Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. Some- 
****** times when the minister says "Finally, my 
brethren" his wearied audience rejoices, and even 
the children scattered through the same, breath a 
sigh of relief; but Paul is never a wearisome 
preacher. When we come to the end of one of his 
discourses we regret its brevity rather than its 
length. His "Finally" startles one into the wish 
that he would go on, rather than into pleasure 
that the end is nigh. 

This apostolic conclusion, like the epistle itself, 
rests upon three basal words — Power, Prayer, 
and Peace, and those three are the expression of 
spiritual life. The first is introduced in the tenth 
verse, the second, in the eighteenth, and the third, 
in the twenty third. 

POWER. 

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the 
power of His might. Put on the whole armour of God, 
that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the 
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high 



140 EPHESIANS— THE THREE -FOLD EPISTLE 

places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, 
that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and 
having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your 
loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate 
of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation 
of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of 
faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery 
darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and 
the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (vss. 
10-17). 

Even a superficial search through this Scrip- 
ture suggests, The source of power: The pro- 
vision for power : and The employment of power. 

The source of power! "Be strong in the Lord, 
and in the power of His might." It is an axiom of 
the Christian life — "All power belongeth unto 
God." One of the proof texts of the very deity of 
Christ is in His own claim "All power in heaven 
and in earth is given unto Me." In the fact of 
the Christian's faith he finds alike his courage and 
his hope, "for it is written, Greater is He that is 
in you than he that is in the world." Possibly 
the secret of Christ's never-failing victory was in 
the fact that He was never out of touch with God. 
His continual fellowship with the Father ex- 
plained his never-failing strength and resource. 
A writer says, "In the great factory there is a 
power room. It is usually a place of perfect quiet. 
The great wheel there is revolving at a terrific 
rapidity, but as silently as the moon pursues her 
journey. The ponderous revolutions of that titanic 
wheel would not disturb an infant's slumbers, 
and yet it is sending power to every tube and 



THREE -FOLD EXPRESSION OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 14] 

piece of machinery in the entire factory. In other 
parts of the building there is activity and noise 
and clatter, but the effectiveness of every piece 
of machinery in it depends upon its relationship 
to the power room, as the effectiveness of every 
saint depends upon his vital connection with the 
Lord, who is our strength. That is why the 
ascending Jesus could say "Ye shall receive pow- 
er after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." 

The provision for power. 'Tut on the whole 
armour of God that ye may be able to stand 
against the wiles of the devil." This Scripture 
clearly suggests that God has provided an ade- 
quate panoply, and it suggests with equal clear- 
ness that man can avail himself of it. It is God's 
armour, but man has to put it on. Man must 
stand against the wiles of the devil but God pro- 
vides him against the day of that experience. 

At times I confess I have been led to question, 
at least, just who has enjoyed the baptism of pow- 
er. There is so much of profession and so little 
of possession ! To make sermons on "power" is 
an art of which hundreds of ministers are well 
nigh adepts ; but to reveal its experience is so 
exceptional that one is led to wonder about the 
provision of power itself. That wonder increases 
as we listen to these discussions ; but it is at an 
end when one comes upon the actual experience. 
It is an old story, and has been used often, but it 
is altogether a patent illustration of my thought. 



142 EPHESIANS— THE THREE -FOLD EPISTLE 

They declare that years ago, before the Austra- 
lian gold fields became famous, a party of experts 
were sent through that country to explore a cer- 
tain district and report on its mineral possibili- 
ties ! They made their survey, sent in a volumi- 
nous report, gave it as their decided opinion that 
gold could be found there, and said there were 
auriferous strata. Men read that opinion, re- 
mained at home and refused the investment of 
their money, concluding that though it might be 
true, it was a speculation ; and people were slow 
to act upon it. Finally there came into the market 
one day some shepherd lads who had brought 
down to Melbourne from the bush, pockets full 
of ore. They showed it about and began to trade 
it for goods. They were asked "Where did you 
get it ?" And they replied "up country ;" "Is there 
any more there?" "Yes, plenty!" The next 
morning there was a stampede; everyone that 
could raise a cart was off to the diggings. 

Once I found myself in despair on this matter of 
provision for power. I had heard so much about it 
and had seen so little of it. Then, suddenly, one 
of our girls from the Bible Training School gave 
to all of us such evidence of having received the 
power of the Spirit that our skepticism was at an 
end. She had put on "the armour of God" and 
since God is no respecter of persons, the experi- 
ence is for all. 

The employment of power. "Wherefore take 



THEEE-FOLD EXPEESSION OF SPIEITUAL LIFE 143 

unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may 
be able to withstand in the evil day, and having 
done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your 
loins girt about with truth, and having on the 
breastplate of righteousness ; and your feet shod 
with the preparation of the gospel of peace ; 
Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye 
shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the 
wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and 
the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" 
(vss. 13-17). 

When one remembers that he "wrestles not 
against flesh and blood, but against principalities 
and powers, against the forces of evil in this pres- 
ent world," he realizes his need of this entire pan- 
oply. And when he comes into God's armory he 
finds that it is completely stocked. There is the 
loin cloth of truth ; there is the breast-plate of 
righteousness ; the sandals of the Gospel of peace ; 
there, the shield of faith. But these are days of 
trench warfare ; the head is now exposed more 
than any portion of the body and God did not for- 
get that?" "The helmet of salvation" hangs in 
that armory, waiting the use of him who will put 
it on. And yet, trench warfare is not one of 
resistance only; there are times when the soldier 
is ordered to go "over the top," and needs the im- 
plements of aggression, and he will find "the 
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God," 
both ready to hand and altogether adequate. And 



144 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-EOLD EPISTLE 

all of this makes application in the spiritual war- 
fare. The entire man needs spiritual protection. 
He is vulnerable at every point; but, as things 
are now, his greatest danger point is in his head. 
More men have lost their religion through the in- 
tellect than in almost any other way. Not that 
Christianity is not reasonable, but that it fails to 
fit itself to false reasoning ; Not that Christianity 
is not scientific, but that it refuses to square itself 
with science — falsely so-called. Nine out of ten 
of the boys who are in the denominational col- 
leges and State Universities and even the theolog- 
ical seminaries of the present hour, have targets 
made of their heads, and professors of German 
infidelity are attempting to storm and capture 
the head of every student, knowing full well that 
the intelligence is central with the soul, and that 
when it is taken captive there will follow a spir- 
itual collapse. If we are to judge by school re- 
sults, no student is able to withstand them who 
does not have "the helmet of salvation," and does 
not know how to wield "the sword of the spirit, 
which is the word of God." I have long been con- 
vinced that the method of education we employ 
in the Northwestern Bible Training School is of 
God. Young people ought not to be exposed to 
the wiles of the adversary, as he has wrought 
those out in modern education, until they have 
first been clad with the armour of God, including 
"the helmet of salvation," and made adepts in the 



THEEE-FOLD EXPEESSION OF SPIEITUAL LIFE 145 

use of "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word 
of God." 

But from the discussion of Power, the Apostle 
passes to 

PRAYER. 

We are not surprised to find Paul a man who 
emphasizes prayer. He was a man who did that 
not alone in his teaching, but put upon his teach- 
ing a better emphasis by actually praying. Prayer 
is sometimes spoken of as the source of power. 
Coleridge is reported by a friend who was at his 
bedside when Coleridge was dying, to have sud- 
denly broken out, "Oh, my dear friend, To pray ; 
to pray as God would have us ; to pray with all 
the heart and strength, with the reason and the 
will ; to believe vividly that God will listen to 
your voice, this is the last, the greatest achieve- 
ment of the Christian's warfare on earth. Teach 
us to pray, oh, Lord !" "And then" says the nar- 
rator, "he burst into a flood of tears and begged 
me to pray for him." 

Paul would have agreed with Coleridge that 
it was "the greatest achievement of the Christian 
warfare." He would have us pray in the Holy 
Spirit, he would have us pray in incessant sup- 
plication, he would have us pray in specific peti- 
tion. 

"Praying always with all prayer and supplica- 
tion in the spirit, and watching thereunto with all 
perseverance and supplication for all saints. 



146 EPHESIANS— THE THREEFOLD EPISTLE 

And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, 
that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known 
the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an am- 
bassador in bonds ; that wherein I may speak 
boldly, as I ought to speak. But that ye also may 
know my affairs, and how I do, Tychicus, a be- 
loved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, 
shall make known to you all things : Whom I 
have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he 
might comfort your hearts" (vss. 18-22). 

He would have us pray in the Holy Spirit. I 
do not know that I can tell you what it is to pray 
in the Spirit. People who have never prayed in 
the Spirit could not understand if they were told ; 
people who have ever prayed in the Spirit do not 
need to be told; they understand. Certainly it 
is to pray, conscious of the Divine presence ; cer- 
tainly it is to pray having the very thoughts as 
well as the words, prompted by the Holy Ghost. 
When the Welsh revival was on, Campbell Mor- 
gan went to visit in that country and study it at 
first hand. His report of the revival was a report 
of prayer. He told how men prayed by the hour ; 
how assemblies came together to change from 
praying only by breaking out in praise. How in 
the midst of silence, someone would cry out 
"Pray for my brother" — giving his name and ad- 
dress, and then a great volume of petition would 
go up to God and Campbell Morgan described it 
all as a spontaneous answer of souls to God. 
Doubtless that is "praying in the Spirit." 



THBEE-FOLD EXPEESSION OF SPIBITUAL LIFE 147 

But Paul says that prayer should be by inces- 
sant supplication. "Praying always, with all 
prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watch- 
ing thereunto with "all perseverance and supplica- 
tion for all saints." The average man prays too 
little. He does not give time to it; he does not 
give thought to it. One of the finest books on 
prayer published in years is from the pen of E. 
M. Bounds. The author says, "Much time spent 
with God is the secret of all successful praying. 
Jacob's victory of faith could not have been gained 
without that all night wrestling. God's acquaint- 
ance is not made by pop-calls. God does not be- 
stow His gifts on the casual or hasty comers and 
goers." He then illustrates. Bishop Andrews 
spent the greater part of five hours a day at 
prayer. William Bramwell was on his knees for 
hours at a stretch, almost living there. He went 
over his circuits like a flame of fire. The fire was 
kindled by the time he spent in prayer. He often 
spent as much as four hours in a single time. Sir 
Henry Havelock, if the encampment was struck 
at six, would rise at four. He was up and at 
prayer before the day broke. Judson prayed In- 
dia into the light. Paul spent hours in this exer- 
cise. Jesus commended the woman whose im- 
portunity compelled the unjust judge to heed her 
cries, and He, Himself prayed so incessantly that 
the fourth night watch often found Him upon His 
knees. An English preacher says : "When He 



148 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

was baptized He prayed; when He made choice 
of the twelve apostles He prayed : when He per- 
formed mighty works, He prayed : when He was 
in the transfiguration He prayed : when, at the 
grave of Lazarus, He prayed; when the public 
enthusiasm was equal to making Him a real King, 
He prayed: when their enthusiasm cooled and 
they rejected Him, He prayed! With prayer He 
agonized in the garden of Gethsemane ; with 
prayer He looked up for support upon the walk to 
the cross ; in prayer He breathed out His spirit in- 
to the Father's hands." 

When the Apostle, therefore, beseeches us to 
"pray always, with all perseverance and supplica- 
tion" he is but pointing us to the custom of Christ. 

And yet, the Apostle is wise, and he petitions us 
to make our prayers specific ! "And for me, that 
utterance may be given unto me, that I may open 
my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of 
the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in 
bonds : that therein I may speak boldly, as I 
ought to speak" (vss. 19-20). I heard Rev. Walt 
Holcomb, son-in-law of Sam Jones, say that 
"when one prays for all creation, he prays for 
nothing; but when he prays for a specific 
thing, he prays for something; for a specific 
person, he prays for somebody." Then Hol- 
comb illustrated by the girl that he heard in 
agony in the rear of the church. As he drew 
nigh with silent feet, she was saying, "Oh, God, 



THREE-FOLD EXPRESSION OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 149 

Give me my father and my brothers, to-day, 
or I die !" And that night the father and three 
brothers came to penitent form and offered them- 
selves to God. If you will go back over your past 
history you will find that your answered prayers 
have been prayers that were specific and that ex- 
pressed some deep desire of the heart. When 
God said "Ask and ye shall receive" He meant 
some specific gift ; and when He said "Knock and 
it shall be opened unto you" He meant at some 
definite door. This specification is one that ought 
to be put into the prayer of every saint, of every 
plea to God for those preachers of the faith "that 
utterance might be given unto them, and that 
they might open their mouths boldly to make 
known the mysteries of the gospel." 

Strangely again Paul here follows the line of 
thinking that is the exact opposite of the usual. 
We usually speak of peace, prayer, and power; 
but Paul turns it about — power, prayer, and 
peace. He knows perfectly well that no man ever 
did pray until the power of the Spirit was upon 
him ; and he also knows that no man ever enjoyed 
peace until after prayer. 

PEACE. 

"Peace to the brethren, and love with faith, from 
God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace 
be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ 
in sincerity" (vss. 23-24). 



150 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

Think of it ! "Peace to the brethren." I have 
no doubt that Paul thought of them as indi- 
viduals ; he knew some of them by name ; he 
meant to invoke this benediction upon their hearts 
and lives. I have no doubt he thought of them 
collectively, as making up the Ephesian church, 
and desired that peace should characterize it, and 
love with faith toward God, — the Father. And 
then he suddenly remembered that they were not 
alone in his desire, that there were great congre- 
gations of others, equally true, and for them he 
wished the same grace, and so he added "Grace 
be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ 
in sincerity." 

God has His peace for the individual. He made 
it, in Christ, on Calvary. Most men have refused 
it; and some act as if they have not found out 
that such a provision existed in their behalf. Dr. 
Dixon tells about a friend of his who, two years 
after the Civil War, went into the mountains of 
North Carolina to spend a few weeks of his sum- 
mer vacation. He climbed the mountain and de- 
scended the other side into the densest valley, 
and to his surprise stumbled upon a little cottage, 
swept about by a few acres of cultivated land. 
On his approach the door was barred against 
him. Only after much pleading was it opened. 
He found two men living there, who had been its 
occupants for nearly three years. They had de- 
serted from the Confederate army, built them- 



THBEE-FOLD EXPEESSION OF SPIEITUAL LIFE 151 

selves a cottage and raised from the soil enough 
for the necessities of life, ever keeping an open 
eye against the conscription officers. The war had 
now been over for two years ; peace had long 
since been declared, but they had not heard it. 
Your peace has been declared much longer. Have 
you appropriated it? 

Paul also suggests peace for the brethren, col- 
lectively; or for the church. He reminded them 
that it was from God, the Father, and our Lord 
Jesus Christ, but for them. There is a beautitul 
harmony in the Pauline epistles — To the Thessa- 
lonians St. Paul wished "peace continuously, from 
the Lord Jesus Christ" Himself. He commended 
the Romans, to "the God of peace" (15:33 & 16: 
20). He enjoined the Corinthians to "live in 
peace" that the God of peace might be with them 
(II Cor. 13:11). As is a great family gathering 
by the hearthstone at the close of the day's labors, 
and at the center completing the circle, sits the 
father, so the church should be round about her 
God, and His presence should be her peace. 

Paul desires it for all them that love the Lord ! 
He expresses it after this manner "Grace be with 
all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sin- 
cerity." It is certain that "peace" belongs only 
to them that love the Lord. The usual version of 
the Scripture mistranslates the angels song, it 
gives it "Peace on earth : good will to men" but 
the angels sang "Peace on earth, toward men of 



152 EPHESIANS— THE THBEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

good will." Men of "good will" toward God: 
men of good will toward their fellows ; they, and 
they alone, know the meaning of peace ; and their 
peace passeth understanding, and the peace of all 
such men is undisturbed, no matter what storms 
sweep about them. There is a beautiful story of 
a contest between artists? Their pictures were 
to represent "Peace." One came with a painting 
of a quiet valley ; trees grew there, and flowers 
were blooming, but not a sign of life was evident. 
He named it "Peace." Another came with a vi- 
sion of a farm, the cows were quietly grazing, 
and the farmer good-naturedly making his way to 
his home where the wife and children awaited 
him. It was his idea of "peace." The third came 
with a cloister. The priest had retired from the 
busy world and was alone in this secluded and 
excluding room. The fourth pictured a mighty 
cataract, running tempestuously over a great fall. 
As you looked upon that mighty torrent you 
couldn't imagine what a man meant to put such 
things into a picture called "Peace." And yet, 
upon a little further study, you saw beside the 
seething, roaring torrent, in the branch of a tree 
that extended out over the cataract itself, a rob- 
bing nest, and on the nest sat the mother bird 
in perfect quiet. She was all undisturbed by the 
foaming waters beneath; her soul as serene as 
the sky overhead. The judges said, "This, after 



THEEE-FOLD EXPEESSION OF SPIEITUAL LIFE 153 

all, is the picture of a perfect peace/' and gave 
the honors to that artist. 

My great predecessor, Dr. Wayland Hoyt, 
said, "It is interesting to get at the etymology of 
the word "peace." Too frequently we associate 
one of the results of a thing with the thing itself. 
When we say "peace" the idea arises of a calm, as 
of a lake on a June day, when the winds are dead ; 
of freedom from the clash of warring desires, and 
the rest which follows when at last the soul set- 
tles itself on some great truth which can no more 
be questioned. But all these are rather the blooms 
which set their beauty on the tree of peace in- 
stead of the tree itself. Peace means "a joining." 
One who has the peace of God has it because he 
is joined to God." In Christ that union has been 
effected and now "the peace of God that passeth 
all understanding" is the believer's portion. That 
is doubtless what the prophet meant when he 
said "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose 
mind is staid on Thee, because he trusteth in 
Thee." 

"When earthly cares and sorrows roll, 

Like ocean's billows o'er my soul, 
No tempest can my barque control, 

If Thou wilt only bring peace to my soul. 

I need Thee, oh, I need Thee so, 

To help me as I onward go; 
Sin's arrows cannot lay me low, 

If Thou wilt only bring peace to my soul. 



154 EPHESIANS— THE THEEE-FOLD EPISTLE 

No cloud can hide from me Thy face, 
No storm deprive me of Thy grace, 

No sin within my heart have place, 

If Thou wilt only bring peace to my soul. 

In joy or sorrow still be near, 
To drive away my ev'ry fear; 

Earth's changes cannot harm me here, 
If Thou wilt only bring peace to my soul. 



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